Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 30
Posts 1 - 10

So können nützliche Apps das Autofahren erleichtern

(This is how useful apps can make driving easier)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 19.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | (mental) health, law, smartphone, threat
Summary | It is prohibited to take a smartphone into your hand while driving - not to text, not to call, and not to check notifications or the time. One can use their smartphone via voice control or if it is mounted on the dashboard as a navigational unit. More and more car-targeted apps are becoming voice operated so as to make them useful for drivers.
Image Description | Images of hand-held and dashboard-mounted smartphones inside cars showing maps and the Facebook logo.
Image Tags | Facebook, hand(s), logo, smartphone

Liebesgeschichte, Heldenreise, Flachwitze, Kacke

(Love story, a hero's journey, flat jokes, poop)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 2.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | childhood, emojis, marketing, smartphone, texting, threat, youth
Summary | The new emoji movie for children is an animated film starring emojis as its main protagonists. Critics find it quite distasteful because it is full of casual advertising for major tech companies and because it does not address the danger of the internet at all. In Textopolis, the world in which emojis live, alphabetic letters are depicted as elderly with walking canes because the youth does not use letters anymore.
Image Description | Screenshots from the Emoji movie.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s), male(s)

«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.
Image Description | N/A

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?
Image Description | N/A

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

At C.D.C., a Debate Behind Recommendations on Cellphone Risk

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 1.1.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | (mental) health, brain, childhood, research/study, smartphone, threat
Summary | A controversy has sparked over the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's health recommendation regarding cell phones. They had reviewed research on brain tumor risk connected with cell phone use and decided that the data were not convincing enough. Their recommendation was that cell phone users need not be more cautious with cell phones than other daily lifestyle choices. However, the research is also not extensive enough to disprove an increased risk of brain tumor with high rates of cell phone use, especially for children. In response to the backlash to this recommendation, their stance was revised a few times so that it now states that the C.D.C. does not recommend caution but other organizations do.
Image Description | Reuters image of a crowd and one man speaking on the smartphone.
Image Tags | male(s), smartphone

Ruhe, bitte!

(Silence, please!)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 26.1.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | (mental) health, research/study, smartphone, threat
Summary | New technology is likely contributing to insomnia. One third of adults suffer insomnia. All our internet devices make it difficult for us to let go of what is happening in the world because we can access it at all times. Sleep experts advise people who suffer from insomnia to stop looking at notifications before one goes to sleep and to ban all electronic devices from the bedroom.
Image Description | Image of a woman sleeping on a skyscraper and images of men (experts) mentioned in the article.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

Die Floh-Affäre

(The flea affair)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 7.2.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | childhood, gender, law, smartphone, threat
Summary | Many children get tricked into subscribing to dubious newsletter services on their smartphones and are then intimidated into paying subscription fees. There is no legal need to pay these fees but people are easily intimidated. The author's son has subscribed to a porn site by accident and possibly President Obama's daughter have similar issues and find themselves having to pay for a horoscope subscription.
Image Description | N/A

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)

So fressen Apps ihr Geld auf

(This is how apps eat your money)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 24.7.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | childhood, game, marketing, smartphone, threat
Summary | Many seemingly free gaming apps off in-app purchases after being downloaded. This is dangerous when unsuperised children use the app - some parents have already received in-app purchase bills of several thousand euros. It is best to either supervise children when playing game apps or to only let them play offline games which do not have pop-up advertising for in-app purchases.
Image Description | A PacMan head.

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