Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 13
Posts 1 - 10

Das Haustier der Zukunft

(The pet of the future)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 12.9.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, childhood
Summary | The robot Cozmo is now available in Germany. It is a toy, Cozmo plays with its users. While he is appropriate for children to use (as long as they are not too young because of choking hazards) but also entertaining for adults. He has a huge repertoire of emotions but also understands the difference between emotions and personality meaning that he does not stay bitter after having been angry once. He can memorize his owner's face and respond to his surrounding in various other ways with the help of artificial intelligence.
Image Description | An image of Cozmo the robot.

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)

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.

Paulinas Englischlehrer

(Paulina's English teacher)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 6.7.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | childhood, digitized education, research/study, technology-free
Summary | Linguists are currently working on robots who can teach foreign languages to children. It is a new research field and it is being tested in several childcare institutions and kindergardens. The results show that children learn better when they are emotionally invested and that is the main advantage of a robot versus just a tablet.The robot is more humanoid and responds emotionally (with praise for correct answers for instance). Recent studies say that 70% of pre-schoolers user their parents' smartphones or tablets for more than 30 minutes a day when that should be the maximum screen time (including TV) a child has per day.
Image Description | A girl using the language learning robot.
Image Tags | female(s), school

Smartphones können Spracherwerb bei Kindern behindern

(Smartphones can hinder the language learning of children)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 15.6.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | childhood, language threat, smartphone
Summary | Children learn language by being interacted with and spoken with. Smartphones can get in the way of that, say when a parent waits for the bus with their child. Before smartphones, the parent would comment on the surroundings and interact with the child. Now, the parent might check their messages and pass up a valuable learning opportunity for their child.
Image Description | A hand holding a smartphone.
Image Tags | hand(s), smartphone

«Ich bin der Dolmetscher der Kinder»

(«I am the translator of the children»)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 13.6.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | childhood, smartphone
Summary | A pediatrician recommends parents to let their children use smartphones and other digital media as much as they like if they do well in school and are socially competent. If they have issues in school or with their social competency, then parents should limit their smartphone use as much as possible. Children must be taught to take responsibility. It is however counter-productive to demonize digital media as they have become inevitable part of all our lives.
Image Description | Portrait of the pediatrician.
Image Tags | male(s)

Einfach mal abschalten

(Just turn it off for a little)

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Newspaper | die Weltwoche
Date | 27.4.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, childhood, smartphone, threat
Summary | Lots of adults are virtually tied to their smartphones, even when crossing the street. The children, naturally, imitate this and for the "head-down generation". One cannot blame the children for becoming addicted to smartphones because they can only form into what they learn from their parents. No wonder that we are dealing with epidemic-like amounts of ADHD diagnoses: children are tranquilized with screens and later the developmental tolls of this are treated with drugs.
Image Description | A collage-like illustration of parents drifting off into the ocean on rafts made of giant smartphones and the children left behind on an island.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone

Eines der reichsten Länder knausert beim Bildungswesen

(One of the wealthiest countries is stingy about education)

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Newspaper | Sonntagszeitung
Date | 19.3.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | abbreviations, childhood, language threat, school, threat
Summary | Children nowadays get a smartphone as soon as they are physically able to hold one and spend their whole lives in an artificial, digital environment. All information is at their finger tips, they only need to know how to read. They mix languages and use more and more abbreviations. To top it off: the goverments cuts money from education.
Image Description | N/A

Kommunikation ist alles

(Communication is everything)

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Newspaper | Frankfurter Neue Presse
Date | 4.2.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | abbreviations, childhood, language threat, smartphone
Summary | Many young children already have smartphones. It is problematic if youths spend too much time on new media - they don't learn how to interact face-to-face so that they whip out the phone even if they are hanging out with a friend. They increasingly write in abbreviations which makes them do badly in school. Parents are part of the problem, because they demand that their children be available on the smartphone at all times. It is important to give children positive offline experiences.
Image Description | Image of a man holding a cell phone and holding his thumb up.
Image Tags | cell phone, hand(s), male(s)

Ärger mit vermeintlich kostenfreien Apps

(Trouble with supposedly free apps)

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Newspaper | Bergische Morgenpost
Date | 15.3.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | addiction, childhood, game, youth
Summary | Parents need to be warned about the hidden costs of supposedly free games. They are hugely popular among children and youths and free at first, like drugs where the first dose is often free, and then they get very expensive very quickly. Experts discourage parents from sharing their credit card information with their children. Addiction experts also advise parents to set up rules of smartphone usage with their children and enforce them - that is the only way how we can keep ourselves from getting addicted to our smartphones in a world of constant availability: by setting the limits ourselves.
Image Description | Pixabay photograph of a woman holding a smartphone.
Image Tags | female(s), hand(s), smartphone

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