Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 51
Posts 1 - 10

La cyberdépendance abrutit les enfants

(Cyberdependence is making kids stupid )

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Newspaper | Le Temps
Date | 2.2.2018
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, childhood, language threat, threat, youth
Summary | More and more children are addicted to screens, which is worrisome. More and more young people have screen addiction problems and need to see a health specialist to help them. The consequences can be serious: obesity, language delay, sleep disorder, and diabetes. Parents shouldn't prohibit anything, but they should teach their children how to manage their screen time.
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Des enfants turbulents ou en retrait

(Agitated and distant children )

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Newspaper | La Tribune de Genève
Date | 13.6.2017
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, childhood, language threat, technology-free, threat
Summary | Experts are worried about the fact that some parents are addicted to their smartphone. Indeed, their addiction can have serious consequences on their children's development. Those children tend to be more irritable and to isolate themselves.
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Quand les écrans abîment nos enfants

(When screens damage our kids)

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Newspaper | La Tribune de Genève
Date | 26.8.2017
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, childhood, language threat, technology-free, threat
Summary | When young kids are exposed to screens, it can alter and damage their development. Doctors in Geneva are worried about this new phenomenon, especially with toddlers younger than 3. Some toddlers don't know how to talk, are hyperactive and can't focus. Parents shouldn't have strict rules at home and should be informed about the dangers of too much screen time.
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Schnauze, Bot!

(Shut up, bot!)

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Newspaper | Sonntagszeitung
Date | 3.9.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, computer programming, Facebook, threat
Summary | News broke that two artificially intelligent Facebook chatbots, Bob and Alice, began communicating with one another using a language that not even their programmers could understand. The programmers then proceeded to kill the chatbots. Some may see this as a threat that artificial intelligence could overpower humans but the messages between the chatbots just operated on a different logic than human linguistic logic and did not seem very threatening at all.
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«Achtung, unterschätzen wir die Senioren nicht»

("Attention, let's not underestimate the elderly")

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Newspaper | Appenzeller Zeitung
Date | 2.9.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, smartphone, threat
Summary | More and more rural post offices are being closed due to restructuring. Online post office services should pick up the slack but it is questionable whether elderly people will be able to adapt to virtual post offices with chatbots. The chief of the Swiss Post, Susanne Ruoff, urges us not to underestimate the elderly. Many of them are online with smartphones and computers nowadays.
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Die Welt mit jungen Augen sehen

(See the world with young eyes)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 5.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | smartphone, threat, youth
Summary | More and more fiction is not targeted at one age group in particular. It is debatable whether that means that the youth today is smarter than ever of whether our currents population consists various generations of eternal teenagers. Novels about young people have always embodies the hope for the future as well as anxieties about current developments like the question, what will happen to our society when smartphones replace all social contacts?
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Als die Server zusammenbrechen, fliessen die Tränen

(As the servers break down, the tears start )

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 27.7.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | game, smartphone, threat, virtual reality
Summary | Pokémon Go is a hugely popular smartphone video game that lets players catch virtual Pokémons in their real surroundings by means of augmented reality. A huge public Pokémon Go event was held in Chicago with 20'000 attendees. At some point the inevitable happemned, the servers collapsed and the app would not work any more. Many players became very upset and Pokémon Go reimbursed all attendees who paid to be at the event with a rare Pokémon.
Image Description | An image of a park with Pokémon, a screenshot of a Pokémon Go map, and a hand holding a smartphone with Pokémon Go open on the screen.
Image Tags | hand(s), smartphone

Quand le smartphone fait de l'ombre au bébé

(When smartphones eclipse babies)

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Newspaper | La Tribune de Genève
Date | 13.6.2017
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, childhood, smartphone, technology-free, threat
Summary | More and more parents take a lot of pictures of their newborn before holding him/her for the first time. As a result, a hospital in the Swiss German part of Switzerland decided to impose a new rule: no screen during mother-baby nap. The problem especially affects the younger generation (under 30). Parents seem to pay more attention to their smartphone, which is alarming. For instance, mothers post pictures of themselves in labor. There are no special rules in Geneva, but doctors and midwives are thinking about alternatives. An excessive use of smartphones can also have a negative impact on children's development.
Image Description | Photograph of a hand taking a picture of a newborn with a smartphone
Image Tags | hand(s), smartphone

«Les lettres d'amour sont toujours révolutionnaires»

("Love letters are still revolutionary")

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Newspaper | La Tribune de Genève
Date | 3.12.2016
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | gender, texting, threat, word/writing
Summary | Philippe Brenot has been studying people's ways of sharing love for more than thirty years. He noticed some gender differences; for instance, women like to save love letters close to themselves whereas men save theirs in binders. Moreover, women don't write about their lover's body, whereas descriptions of female bodies are omnipresent in men's letters. However, in text messages, women are more likely to be straightforward. Brenot claims that love letters are not disappearing with new technologies. People still send each other love messages and save them.
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Generation Blödphone?

(Generation Dumbphone?)

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Newspaper | Der Bund
Date | 11.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | addiction, research/study, smartphone, threat, youth
Summary | A US study has conducted surveys among teenagers asking them how often they go out without their parents, whether they date or have had sex, how much they sleep , etc. The results show that teenagers go out/date less, sleep less, and have sex later in life since the advent of smartphones. Swiss media psychologist Gregor Waller criticizes the study because it bases its conclusions on mere correlation. It leaves out other important developments in the US since 2007 like the financial crisis. An equivalent Swiss study does not show similar results. Most Swiss teenagers continue to have a rich social life despite smartphones. Only about 10% of Swiss teenagers are at risk of smartphone addiction.
Image Description | Graphs showing results of the US study and a portrait of the interviewee (Swiss psychologist Gregor Waller).
Image Tags | chart, male(s)

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