Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 9
Posts 1 - 9

'Ha' Isn't a Laugh. Seriously?

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 8.7.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | abbreviations, emojis, Facebook, research/study, texting, word/writing
Summary | People express laughs in different ways when the text or otherwise communicate online. Some type a version of "haha", others write "LOL" or a similar abbreviation but none of these messages mean that one is actually laughing. Linguists who have analyzed thousands of texts claim that LOLs signal interlocutor involvement like an "uh-huh" on the phone.
Image Description | Cartoon of various people laughing with various noises.
Image Tags | male(s)

Social Insecurity? internet Turns Boomers Into Twits

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 5.5.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | emojis, Facebook, misunderstanding, research/study, youth
Summary | Elders are coming to Facebook and it's not pretty. Most young people find their older relatives' activities on Facebook cringey because they appear to regress back into their younger selves which is somehow undignified for the elderly. They also sometimes use wrong emojis because they tend to be too small for them to properly see. Young people are moving on to other platforms.
Image Description | Images of Cher, Donald Trump, and Larry King as well as some of their Tweets.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), Twitter

Facebook will Menschen mit dem Gehirn tippen lassen

(Facebook wants to let people type with their brain)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 21.4.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | brain, Facebook, privacy, research/study, translation
Summary | Facebook is working on ways to enable people to write without typing. Stanford university has succeeded in implanting electrodes into a woman's brain letting her type merely by thinking. This would also eventually enable people to write in languages that they do not speak because our brain does not function verbally. Facebook is however very clear about not wanting to read people's minds completely without their consent. The technology would only pick up selective thoughts wich users consent to sharing.
Image Description | N/A

Das Uni-Facebook-Ranking 2016

(The uni Facebook ranking 2016)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 12.12.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | Facebook, research/study, school
Summary | University rankings are usually based on prizes and citations accumulated by the researchers of the institution. An alternative approach is to look at the Facebook reach universities have: the most influential Swiss university on Facebook is ETH Lausanne with over 60'000 likes followed by ETH Zurich with some 40'000 likes. This is all peanuts compared to Harvard University with 4.8 mio likes and Cambridge University with 1.8 mio likes.
Image Description | N/A

Facebook will Gedanken lesen, hat dafür aber noch keine Technologie

(Facebook wants to read minds but lacks the technology for it)

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Newspaper | Appenzeller Zeitung
Date | 21.4.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | brain, Facebook, research/study, translation
Summary | Facebook wants to read minds. A team of 60 researchers are working on technologies to make this possible. The goal is for users to be able to send a message through Facebook without even taking their smartphone out of their pockets. A further goal is for people to be able to send messages in a language they do not speak.
Image Description | N/A

L'algorithme qui comprend les contes pour enfants

(The algorithm that understands children's tales)

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Newspaper | Le Monde
Date | 28.2.2017
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, Facebook, research/study
Summary | One of Facebook's research labs on artificial intelligence created an algorithm capable of understanding and remembering texts. The algorithm is even better than the "tale's text". The essence of intelligence is the capacity to predict, which is also one of the goals of artificial intelligence. Chatbots don't understand the questions that people ask; they actually react to keywords.
Image Description | N/A

People who swear a lot are more likely to be honest, study finds

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Newspaper | Mirror
Date | 18.1.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | Facebook, politeness, research/study
Summary | Researchers found out that people who cuss more are more likely to be honest. If they do not filter their language to please other people, they are less likely to filter the content too. The study analysed thousands of Facebook posts and found that Facebook users in the north east of the US are more prone to use expletives in their posts while users from the south use less swear words. Those who cussed on Facebook also used a lexicon indicating honesty (such words as "I" and "me").
Image Description | Getty image of a woman crossing her fingers behind her back and a Reuters image of Donald Trump.
Image Tags | female(s), hand(s), male(s)

Digital friends making you lonely? Here are 9 things to do other than check Facebook

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Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 2.3.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, Facebook, research/study, social media
Summary | Recent statistics say that more young people feel lonely than old people - despite those active social media lives. Psychologists are eager to explain that social media activity cannot replace real human companionship. There are many things one can do to exit the social media anxiety habit: joing a class or club too meet new people or to see good friends on a regular basis, have phone calls with friends, spend weekends with friends, learn to be happy while being alone sometimes - this can be achieved by meditation and mindfulness.
Image Description | A series of Alamy images showing a woman using a smartphone in bed, a woman holding a smartphone with a laptop in the background, and various images of social activities with no technological devices (dinner, birthday party, wine drinking, gardening class) as well as a man using a laptop and smiling while talking on the phone and a woman meditating.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, female(s), hand(s), male(s), smartphone, WhatsApp

Facebook Could Be Associated With a Longer Life, Study Finds

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 31.10.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | (mental) health, Facebook, research/study
Summary | A recent study about longevity shows that moderate Facebook activity correlates with better health and hence a longer life. Previous research shows that an active social life in general (so offline) also correlates with longevity. Because the results however only attast to correlation and not necessarily to a causal connection, it could also be that healthier people are just more social online and offline and not that sociability has an effect on health. It has been confirmed that a rich social life makes people happier while excessive Facebook use leads to people being unhappy.
Image Description | Woman instructing old man using a computer.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, female(s), male(s)

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