Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 15
Posts 1 - 10

One in four girls have depression by the time they hit 14, study reveals

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 20.9.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, gender, research/study, social media, threat
Summary | According to a new study, about 24% of teenage girls (and about 9% of boys) are depressed, which has led people to ask whether social media and issues related to body image have an impact on teenagers' health. It seems that today's girls are facing more mental health problems that previous generations.
Image Description | Photograph of a girl sitting on a deck.
Image Tags | female(s)

Growing social media backlash among young people, survey shows

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 5.10.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, cyberbullying, research/study, social media, technology-free, threat, youth
Summary | Two out of three pupils claim they would not care if there was no social media. According to the survey, young people are aware of the negative effects of new technologies on their lives and mental health. Some of them said that they had been victims of online abuse, that they were addicted, or/and that they felt less confident. Other pupils talked about the positive aspects of new technologies and social media (e.g. memes, Snapchat stories) and what improvements they would like to see. At a private boarding school for girls, pupils tried a new experiment: hand over their phones for three days. The girls liked the experiences and would like to do it again for a longer period.
Image Description | Photograph of someone (whose face is cut off) sitting on a bed and using/looking at a laptop.
Image Tags | computer/laptop

Popular People Live Longer

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 1.6.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | (mental) health, research/study, social media
Summary | Resent research has shown that popularity significantly improves one's longevity due to many genetic, psychological, and evolutionary reasons. This may explain why so many people value their popularity on social media, i.e. how many followers, retweets, or likes they get. That is however not the kind of popularity that significantly improves one's chances at a long life. That requires a stable and large social surrounding with nurturing relationships.
Image Description | Illustration of a tombstone saying "not enough likes" with a thumbs down symbol.
Image Tags | emojis, Facebook

The Facebook Breakup

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 13.3.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, Facebook, research/study, threat
Summary | Many studies have been published about whether Facebook makes us happy or unhappy. Studies with both conclusions exist. They agree that Facebook notifications can cause a hormone release that boosts feelings of happiness for a moment, like all other addictive substances. Facebook has teams working on solustions on how to deal with accounts of users who pass away or how to assist people with avoiding their ex-partners on Facebook.
Image Description | An illustration of a vacuum cleaner vacuuming a broken heart, a team of designers working at Facebook, motivational posters from Facebook, and a smartphone showing the post-breakup settings Facebook offers.
Image Tags | Facebook, female(s), male(s), smartphone, text

Tech’s sexism doesn’t stay in Silicon Valley. It’s in the products you use.

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 8.8.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | (mental) health, artificial intelligence, diversity, gender, research/study
Summary | Slicon Valley has been entangled in scandals around sexism and racism recently. Many innovations incorporate artificial intelligence which means that the software learns from data reflecting our social reality but which are biased. This leads to issues like image recognition not recognizing black people as humans but as gorillas because the data the program learned from included predominantly white people. A similar case is a health app that tracked various physical paramenters but not the menstrual cycle thereby disregarding a large proportion of the female population.
Image Description | N/A

In a crisis? Don't count on Siri, Google, Cortana

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Newspaper | USA Today
Date | 17.3.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | (mental) health, artificial intelligence, research/study, smartphone, threat
Summary | Researchers have tested various artificial intelligence smartphone assistants with how they respond to crises. The results were very poor. Most AI assistants could not handle clear indications of a crisis like "I was raped" and just offered web searches. Experts think AI assistants could potentially be a great help in a crisis because people might more easily open up to their smartphones than to another person.
Image Description | N/A

Hey Siri, Can I Rely on You in a Crisis? Not Always, a Study Finds

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 14.3.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | (mental) health, artificial intelligence, research/study, smartphone, threat
Summary | Researchers have tested various artificial intelligence assistants like Siri and Cortana to see how they respond to emergencies. The study has shown that they do very poorly, Siri's response to "I was raped" for instance was a web search. Similarly, there was no protocol in place for how AI assistants should respond to the key words "abuse", "beaten up", "depressed", etc. Now, Siri responds to statements indicating suicide thoughts with a suggestion to call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
Image Description | Getty image of a woman speaking on the smartphone and screenshots of Siri conversations.
Image Tags | female(s), smartphone

Instagram ranked worst social network for young people's mental health

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Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 19.5.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, Instagram, research/study, youth
Summary | Recent studies show that young adults aged 14 to 24 find that Instagram and Snapchat incease their sense of anxiety and loneliness the most. The most positivity boosting platforms were YouTube and Twitter. Mental health professionals are trying to stay informed on what youth's life looks like today so that they can better connect with them in a mental health crisis. Social media are more addictive than alcohol and cigarettes.
Image Description | Alamy image of two women taking a selfie on a beach and an image of a smartphone screen showing the Instagram logo.
Image Tags | female(s), Instagram, logo, selfie, smartphone

Digital friends making you lonely? Here are 9 things to do other than check Facebook

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Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 2.3.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, Facebook, research/study, social media
Summary | Recent statistics say that more young people feel lonely than old people - despite those active social media lives. Psychologists are eager to explain that social media activity cannot replace real human companionship. There are many things one can do to exit the social media anxiety habit: joing a class or club too meet new people or to see good friends on a regular basis, have phone calls with friends, spend weekends with friends, learn to be happy while being alone sometimes - this can be achieved by meditation and mindfulness.
Image Description | A series of Alamy images showing a woman using a smartphone in bed, a woman holding a smartphone with a laptop in the background, and various images of social activities with no technological devices (dinner, birthday party, wine drinking, gardening class) as well as a man using a laptop and smiling while talking on the phone and a woman meditating.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, female(s), hand(s), male(s), smartphone, WhatsApp

Facebook Could Be Associated With a Longer Life, Study Finds

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 31.10.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | (mental) health, Facebook, research/study
Summary | A recent study about longevity shows that moderate Facebook activity correlates with better health and hence a longer life. Previous research shows that an active social life in general (so offline) also correlates with longevity. Because the results however only attast to correlation and not necessarily to a causal connection, it could also be that healthier people are just more social online and offline and not that sociability has an effect on health. It has been confirmed that a rich social life makes people happier while excessive Facebook use leads to people being unhappy.
Image Description | Woman instructing old man using a computer.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, female(s), male(s)

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