Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 13
Posts 1 - 10

Screens and teens: survival tips for parents on the technology battlefield

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Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 23.9.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, smartphone, social media, threat, youth
Summary | A mom talks about her battle over digital screens with her children. Children are spending more time online, and research keeps showing the negative effects that screens can have (e.g. isolation, bullying, porn, suicide etc.). Since the phenomenon is so new, it is difficult for parents -they have no guide to follow. Technology is not necessarily bad, but parents should make sure their children are okay and happy. The article provides a list with some advice concerning young people and screens; from screen time limit to online groups and social media.
Image Description | Photograph of a young girl using her laptop, a mom and her daughter with a laptop and tablet, three children behind books, and a mom and her two kids with a laptop, tablet, and smartphone.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, female(s), male(s), smartphone, tablet

Techie teens help bridge generational digital gap

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 16.5.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | email, emojis, smartphone, social media, youth
Summary | Teenagers are volunteering to teach elders about technology. They teach them simple things like how to use email, social media, how to connect to wifi, as well as how to use emojis. The elderly taking the courses love it because the kids do not use complicated language to explain the technology because they have learned it all intuitively as digital natives.
Image Description | Teenagers and elderly people using a laptop.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, female(s), male(s)

Why Kids Can't Write

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 2.8.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | grammar, punctuation, school, smartphone, social media, spelling, texting, threat, word/writing
Summary | Many students struggle with writing despite various pedagogical models that have been implemented in past years to tackle that perpetual issue. This is all the more suprising considering that today's students may do moret voluntary writing than any generation before it. They text and post on social media a lot but the writing register is different there. The format's main principle is shortness so grammar, spelling, and punctuation take a back seat.
Image Description | GIF of a hand writing and a group of teachers in a workshop.
Image Tags | female(s), gifs, text

Practice safe Internet on the road

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Newspaper | USA Today
Date | 31.7.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | email, privacy, smartphone, social media, threat
Summary | Traveling can be dangerous, especiallyin the digital age. Many travelers make themselves vulnerable to criminals by sharing their location on social media or by connecting to a password-free wifi which is often provided by scammers to hack into email accounts. In these cases virtual kidnapping becomes possible when travelers spend a few days somewhere off the grid and a local group claims to have kidnapped the traveler and blackmails their family for ransom.
Image Description | Getty image of a woman sitting in a train.
Image Tags | female(s)

I swiped right and got a life coach, not a life partner

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Newspaper | Los Angeles Times
Date | 6.4.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | (mental) health, online dating, smartphone, social media
Summary | The author of the article met a life coach/texting buddy on Tinder. They have now been texting each other for two years, and they have never met. Her life coach, a young Syrian man, regularly gives her tips about relaxation, meditation, and breathing. She likes the fact that her "therapist" is digitally accessible 24 hours a day.
Image Description | Illustration of a laptop and two hands touching each other
Image Tags | computer/laptop, hand(s), keyboard

Teenage Days, Streamed For Coins

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 7.6.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | smartphone, social media, video communication, virtual reality, youth
Summary | 15-year-old Bryce Xavier is a star on Live.ly (a live streaming app). Bryce spends every day among a virtual crowd of fans (mostly teenage girls). For instance, he can broadcast his lunch at Olive Garden with his mom. Bryce became very popular on the platform; as a consequence, he dropped out of school and started homeschooling so that he would have enough time for Live.ly. Live streaming has become popular because it is seen as more authentic than other social media platforms. Despite many advantages, the platform can also render human interaction shallow.
Image Description | N/A

Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?

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Newspaper | The Atlantic
Date | 0.9.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, cyberbullying, gender, smartphone, social media, threat, youth
Summary | A US study has conducted a large survey among teenagers and found out that smartphones are impacting their lives significantly. They sleep less, go out less, date less, are less likely to get (someone) pregnant, feel left out more, have more mental health issues, etc. Especially girls are more likely to feel left out because they spend more time on social media and because girls tend to bully each other by ostracization which is very easily achievable in cyberspace. Also, the teenage suicide rate has surpassed the teenage homicide rate for the first time in history.
Image Description | Two illustrations showing a woman falling with a tablet and a woman lying in bed at night looking at her smartphone. Charts showing the results from the US survey.
Image Tags | chart, female(s), smartphone, tablet

Wie der Selfie-Wahn unseren Urlaub ruiniert

(How the selfie craze is ruining our vacation)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 28.3.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | addiction, selfie, smartphone, social media, threat
Summary | It has become more important to post on social media than to experience. We evaluate our life based on social media likes. This is very visible in holiday destinations, for instance in skiing destinations in Austria which have introduced free wifi on all slopes. People care more about their selfies than about the skiing. This fuels the addictive potential of social media and smartphones.
Image Description | N/A

Ignoranz ist Stärke

(Ignorance is strength)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 3.2.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | fake news, politics, privacy, smartphone, social media, threat
Summary | Kellyanne Conways term "alternative facts" remind of Orwell's fictional language Newspeak which also changes meanings by renaming. Many facts of contemporary life (especially under the Trump administration) remind of dystopian novels "1984" by G. Orwell and "Brave New World" by A. Huxley. We all carry smartphones with us at all times with which we can send information but which also receive and document information about us like our location, who else is in that location, our communications, purchases, and so on. Privacy has become impossible in the digital age.
Image Description | Images and videos of the film "1984" and George Orwell as well as the news clip where Kellyanne Conway mentions "alternative facts".
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), TV

Dieses Buch trotzt sogar Netflix

(This book even defies Netflix)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 30.3.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | addiction, smartphone, social media, technology-free, TV
Summary | Carlos Ruiz Zafón's Barcelona tetralogy can compete with the endless entertainment of Netflix and smartphones. Books have had it hard as an entertainment medium in the age of endless social media threads and never-stopping, action-packed Netflix series. While Ruiz Zafón's books are not literary masterpieces, they succeed in captivating readers so that they do not even desire to check their smartphones for notifications for hours at a time!
Image Description | N/A

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