Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 203
Posts 1 - 10

One in four girls have depression by the time they hit 14, study reveals

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 20.9.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, gender, research/study, social media, threat
Summary | According to a new study, about 24% of teenage girls (and about 9% of boys) are depressed, which has led people to ask whether social media and issues related to body image have an impact on teenagers' health. It seems that today's girls are facing more mental health problems that previous generations.
Image Description | Photograph of a girl sitting on a deck.
Image Tags | female(s)

Twitter founder: Trump presidency is product of short attention spans

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 13.9.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | politics, social media, threat, Twitter
Summary | Evan Williams, one of Twitter's founders, claims that Donald Trump's online behavior is showing how social media platforms are making us dumber. Indeed, social networks are based on short attention spans, and they also undermine open-mindedness and our sense of truth. According to Williams, advertising models are to be blamed.
Image Description | Portrait of Donald Trump.
Image Tags | male(s)

Ban mobile phones in schools to protect pupils' mental health

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 26.9.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, childhood, school, smartphone, threat
Summary | According to Shannon Turner, schools should ban smartphones to protect their pupils. Screens and social media can have a negative impact on children's health, which is why some schools have already put in place new rules (e.g. give children 6 hours of digital-free time).
Image Description | Photograph of two pupils in a classroom; one of them is showing her friend a smartphone and the other is giggling.
Image Tags | female(s), school, smartphone

How silicon valley is erasing your individuality

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 10.9.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, privacy, threat
Summary | Google and other major tech companies are trying to increase their monopoly and reach every area of our lives. It seems that those companies can now do anything; they are all competing to become the best personal assistants. Thanks to artificial intelligence softwares, they want to be constantly by our sides and never leave us. Major tech companies believe we are all "social" beings. Therefore, they try to create "social" platforms where we can all collaborate. They think that by bringing us together, they will make a better world. When it comes to individuality and free will, tech companies know what they're doing. They have algorithms that tell us/suggest what to buy, what to read, or what to do. The dominance and monopoly of big tech companies can be dangerous; it can lead to conformism and privacy issues.
Image Description | N/A

Slain teen's mother urges Congress to amend Web law

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 20.9.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | law, pornography, threat, youth
Summary | The mom of a 16-year old teenage girl who's been murdered testified about her daughter. Desiree Robinson was 16 and was on Backpage.com. The alleged killer used Backpage.com to find young girls with whom he could have sex. The pictures that Desiree posted online were the reason that led to her death. Senator Rob Portman introduced a new bill that will end immunity for websites that host prostitution-related advertising. Online sex trafficking is a serious issue and we need to do something to fight it.
Image Description | N/A

Violent thriller won't have many clicking 'like'

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 22.9.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | (mental) health, Facebook, social media, threat
Summary | The movie "Friend Request" is about the danger of social media and Facebook anxiety. The movie is unlikely to be popular though. In the movie, Laura is a popular college student and has a lot of Facebook friends. When Laura unfriends Marina, a shy student who posts a lot of gothic animations, Marina kills herself. The movie plot is a good idea, especially in the age of social media, but the movie fails to develop its characters.
Image Description | N/A

For this company, online surveillance leads to profit in Washington’s suburbs

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 10.9.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | emojis, privacy, social media, threat
Summary | Babel Street is a startup that uses online surveillance; they try to get private information from online platforms in order to catch cybercriminals. For instance, police departments might use the service provided by the company in their investigations and scan posts online. Experts try to track dangerous criminals while analyzing posts in more than 200 languages, including the emoji language. Emoji has actually been a challenge for analysts. Another challenge the company faces is to make sure sure it doesn't violate people's privacy.
Image Description | Photograph of a man standing in a news room in front of several TVs, and two other people.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

Growing social media backlash among young people, survey shows

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 5.10.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, cyberbullying, research/study, social media, technology-free, threat, youth
Summary | Two out of three pupils claim they would not care if there was no social media. According to the survey, young people are aware of the negative effects of new technologies on their lives and mental health. Some of them said that they had been victims of online abuse, that they were addicted, or/and that they felt less confident. Other pupils talked about the positive aspects of new technologies and social media (e.g. memes, Snapchat stories) and what improvements they would like to see. At a private boarding school for girls, pupils tried a new experiment: hand over their phones for three days. The girls liked the experiences and would like to do it again for a longer period.
Image Description | Photograph of someone (whose face is cut off) sitting on a bed and using/looking at a laptop.
Image Tags | computer/laptop

Girls and social media: 'You are expected to live up to an impossible standard'

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 23.8.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | gender, social media, threat, youth
Summary | According to a new poll, 1 out of 3 girls feels pressured to be "perfect" on social networks. Five teenage girls share their opinion on the subject. For instance, they constantly compare themselves to other people online and then feel like they have to project a perfect image of themselves online. Some people delete their pictures online because they don't feel confident anymore and think they are not following the "rules". Moreover, young girls online constantly look for other people's validation and "likes". Instagram seems to be the worst social network for those girls.
Image Description | Photograph of hands holding smartphones.
Image Tags | hand(s), smartphone

Facebook Faces a New World as Officials Rein In a Wild Web

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 17.9.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, Facebook, marketing, privacy, social media, threat
Summary | Facebook’s head of global policy management recently agreed to remove anything that violates the Vietnamese law from the social network. Governments around the world (even in the US) are increasingly trying to keep control of what's happening online. As a result, governments and big tech companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook or Amazon don't always agree with each other. On the one hand, big tech companies want to have more control and power, and on the other hand, nations want to gain more control over people's online behvior. Facebook's desire to expand everywhere (e.g. in China) is one of the reasons for today's struggle between tech companies and nations. Facebook also faced some issues in Europe and Africa.
Image Description | Photograph of people using computers in a computer room, map of Facebook's users, two women laughing in front of a board displaying social media icons, Mark Zuckerberg and other people running in China, Mark Zuckerberg, his wife and daughters, glass building, people in front of a thumb-up sign, woman, crowd (some of them are using their phones), and people on their computers.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, Facebook, female(s), male(s), smartphone, social media

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