Number of Posts: 20
Posts 1 - 10
The rise and rise of Whatsapp: 300 billion instant messages are expected to be sent throughout 2014 – and that’s just in the UK
Newspaper | Mail Online
Date | 7.8.2014
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | research/study, sexting, texting, WhatsApp, youth
Summary | Instant messaging has overtaken texting: The average British person sends just seven text messages a day compared to 46 instant messages. Popular apps are WhatsApp, Facebook messenger, and Viber. Many people have five messaging apps on their smartphones on average. The high amount of instant messaged sent can partly be explained by the flatrate cost rather than paying for every message individually. A Michigan University study shows that half of 18-24 year olds (over 3000 participants) engage in sexting.
Image Description | Photograph of a WhatsApp icon on a screen.
Image Tags | WhatsApp
Have you got text appeal?
Newspaper | The Evening Standard
Date | 4.4.2014
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | misunderstanding, online dating, texting
Summary | Negotiating relationships and sexualities via new media can be challenging. The online forum hetexted.com helps people (mainly women) 'decipher' the social meanings of text messages. Many women use the site to get advice about what their love interest meant with a text message and how they should respond depending on their intentions. The creators of the site report that the demand is huge so that they even expanded to London as well (they had started in New York). They have however realized that dating customs and hence texting conventions are culturally distinctive.
Image Description | N/A
«What’s Up, Switzerland? »: Spenden Sie Nachrichten für die Forschung
(“What’s Up, Switzerland?”: Donate messages for research)
Newspaper | Aargauer Zeitung
Date | 1.6.2014
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | research/study, texting, What's up Switzerland, WhatsApp
Summary | Language researchers from various Swiss universities (Neuchâtel/ Zürich/ Bern) are asking the public to submit their WhatsApp messages for research purposes. German, French, Italian, and Romansh submissions will be accepted and the WhatsApp data will be compared to SMS data collected between 2009-2011. The researchers are further interested in whether there are communicative differences in WhatsApp messaging between speakers of different languages or regional dialects.
Image Description | Screenshot of three icons: WhatsApp, Skype, and Dropbox.
Image Tags | Dropbox, logo, Skype, WhatsApp
Hilfe @ mein Gott
(Help @ my God)
Newspaper | Sonntagszeitung
Date | 27.7.2014
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | email, texting, youth
Summary | More and more people are leaving their church. Both the protestant and Catholic clergy have come together and built an online platform for people to receive spiritual guidance via e-mail or text-message. The service has been quite popular since 2012 when its increased traffic due to the ending of the Maya calendar received a lot of media attention, particularly amongst people aged 14 to 30.
Image Description | N/A
Das Ende der Telefonbuchse naht
(The end of the telephone socket is approaching)
Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 7.2.2014
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | texting, WhatsApp
Summary | Swisscom is changing the technology behind landline phone calls to the new VoIP (Voice over IP/Internet) technique, and because Swisscom has lost a lot of business to internet based instant messaging app WhatsApp, they are launching a messaging service called iO, which enables Swisscom clients to text other Swisscom clients for free and unlimited.
Image Description | Photograph in black and white of a woman using a rotary dial phone.
Image Tags | female(s)
'La web conecta y a la vez separa'
('The Web connects and disconnects at the same time')
Newspaper | El Mundo
Date | 30.4.2014
Language | Spanish
Country | Spain
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, brain, research/study, smartphone, texting
Summary | Two experts debate about digital technologies and their impact on our lives. The internet is changing our society; some people think that it is making us more stupid and less connected, and some disagree. Both experts talk about the benefits of internet (e.g. collective intelligence, medical information online) and the risks (e.g. lack of privacy, digital divide). They both disagree with people such as Nicholas Carr who think internet is making us dumb and superficial. Hey may be exaggerating, but one expert agrees with the fact that people don't pay as much attention to what they're doing because they're always on their screens. They may be losing a few skills (e.g. reading texts with full attention, and having deep conversations). Internet and new technologies are changing our brain; for instance, they have an impact on memory. We don't have to remember as many things as before. Both experts also talk about the future of paper and books, and relationships.
Image Description | Video of the interview with the experts.
Image Tags | male(s)
La letra, con ‘smartphone’, entra
(The letter enters with smartphone (pun with "la letra con sangre entra"))
Newspaper | El País
Date | 27.10.2014
Language | Spanish
Country | Spain
Topic Tags | grammar, research/study, social media, spelling, texting, threat, youth
Summary | Spelling and grammar are having a hard time in today's society; there seems to be too much lenience with regards to writing rules, which may be due to an incorrect use of new technologies. People should know when it is appropriate to use a specific register. It is okay to write a text message with abbreviations as long as users are able to change register and adapt their writing in an exam for example. A professor in Valladolid claims that handwriting as opposed to digital writing can be the solution to spelling and grammar mistakes. Social media and the way we write on those networks have a major impact on our writing skills. A study showed that the mistakes young people make in their writing assignments come from our habit to constantly write quickly and be spontaneous on social media. Those mistakes are mostly due to a lack of attention. The study also showed a positive aspect: with social media, we write more.
Image Description | Photograph of a group of four young people using their smartphone.
Image Tags | female(s), hand(s), male(s), smartphone
No imprta q este scrito asi
(It doesnt matter how its written)
Newspaper | El País
Date | 19.3.2014
Language | Spanish
Country | Spain
Topic Tags | abbreviations, language threat, spelling, texting, youth
Summary | A study in France demonstrated that text message characteristics have no impact on spelling skills. If you child texts using a lot of emoticons to replace words, or mispells certain words, it doesn't mean he or she is going to make more spelling mistakes in a writing assignment. He or she might even master spelling rules better than someone who doesn't text. Young people play with language and know when it is appropriate or not to use text message characteristics. However, some people disagree and think that texting can have a negative impact on spelling skills, the Spanish language, and calligraphy.
Image Description | Photograph of a group of young girls sitting and using their smartphones, and photograph of someone (hands) texting.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s), hand(s), smartphone, text
BTDTGTTSAWIO – das FBI erklärt Slang
(BTDTGTTSAWIO – the FBI explains slang)
Newspaper | Der Bund
Date | 19.6.2014
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | abbreviations, childhood, texting, youth
Summary | The FBI has published a list of social media/messaging app abbreviations which helps them in their hunt for criminals and which could help the broader public to keep an eye on their children. Some of these abbreviations are: SOMSW (someone over my shoulder watching), NIFOC (naked in front of computer), and BTDTGTTSAWIO (been there, done that, got the t-shirt and wore it out). The FBI’s publication has been criticized for being irrelevant because these abbreviations are rarely used.
Image Description | Photograph of a hand holding a smartphone and texting. Photograph of a hand holding a smartphone and texting.
Image Tags | hand(s), smartphone, text
Schriftliche Forschheiten: Vom Niedergang der Höflichkeit
(Written briskness: On the demise of politeness)
Newspaper | Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ)
Date | 1.9.2014
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | email, language threat, politeness, school, texting, WhatsApp, word/writing
Summary | Communication researchers agree that politeness in professional writing has decreased with the rise of digital communication. Rules of formal writing are omitted: what was“Honored Professor So-and-so” is now a simple “Hello”. Both students and also professors are reported to have a relaxed level of formality in email exchanges. This is usually seen as an influence of texting, where traditional messages of respect are omitted, but it can also be argued that the new brief communication style is a form of respecting the addressee’s time by writing efficiently.
Image Description | Photograph of a female texting; the shot does not show the person's face but emphasizes the phone.
Image Tags | female(s), hand(s), smartphone, text
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