Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 49
Posts 41 - 49

It may be shallow and salacious, but don’t blame Tinder for online misogyny

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 8.4.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | gender, online dating, research/study, social media, threat
Summary | A new study revealed that the dating app Tinder spreads sexism and ideals of beauty; however, according to the author of the article, such behavior is not new. The media tends to portray new technologies and new apps as responsible for numerous societal ills, thus being dangerous. This new research follows a similar discourse while blaming the dating app Tinder of misogyny. However, sexism and beauty standards also existed before the age of social media. Thus, sexist comments are not the result of new technologies/apps; they go well beyond our digital devices.
Image Description | Photograph of a smartphone with the Tinder app open; we can see parts of a woman's face and a big LIKE in green.
Image Tags | female(s), smartphone, Tinder

'Everyone could know what I was doing': the millennials not using social media

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 17.3.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | smartphone, social media, technology-free, youth
Summary | The majority of millenials are active on social media; those who are not explain why they decided not to have a social media account. Although the young interviewees admit that social network sites are useful to stay in touch with people far away and to organize parties and other events, they also think that they can be detrimental. For example, some of the interviewees feel uncomfortable with the fact that people share intimate details about their lives online, and with the fact that everyone knows everything about other people. Also, some people think that it is a waste of time and that it is useless.
Image Description | Series of five photographs representing the interviewees.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

How Silicon Valley's parents keep their children safe online

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 2.3.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | childhood, smartphone, social media, technology-free, threat
Summary | Silicon Valley's parents explain how they deal with their children's use of internet. Since parents cannot control everything or spy on their kids, they talk to them and teach them how to use the internet. Some parents have more restrictions; for example, no screens from Friday night to Saturday night. As a result, parents and children spend more time together and do fun activities. Other parents only let ther children go online with an adult's supervision. A psychologist claims that social media have a negative impact on children; they drive them away from family and school.
Image Description | Photograph of a female child sitting on her bed and looking at a tablet.
Image Tags | female(s), tablet

Always practise safe text: the German traffic light for smartphone zombies

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 29.4.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | smartphone, threat
Summary | The word "smombie" (smartphone + zombie) was recently added to the German vocabulary. It refers to a person walking in the street and using his/her phone. People who do that are oblivious and can cause accidents. As a result, a couple of German cities have invested money in the creation of new traffic lights. In the US, some cities have buses that "talk" and alert pedestrians. In China, you can also find streets with "phone lanes" (as opposed to bicycle lanes for example).
Image Description | Series of three photograph and one video: woman holding a phone next to a tram, tram stop with people, Chinese kids walking on a "phone lane", and street interview of several people in German.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone

Darian Leader: how technology is changing our hands

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 21.5.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | addiction
Summary | Today's digital era is marked by the effects of new technologies. For instance, space and time do not have as clear boundaries as before, and relationships have changed too, whether it is a good or a bad thing. One of the ways in which new technologies impact us is related to the use of our hands. We use our hands and fingers for new movements, and as a consequence, more people suffer from hand problems now. We have always used our hands and kept them busy; they are a very important part of us. As some movies exemplify, our hands sometimes act without our will. The same thing happens with new technologies; it is almost as if we cannot help touching our digital devices. Hands are agents with power. When people are addicted to something (e.g. smartphone), they cannot control themselves.
Image Description | Series of five photographs: Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam", poster of the movie "The Hand", screenshot of Elsa from the movie "Frozen", keyboard with silhouette of a hand, screenshot of a scene of "The Hunger Games".
Image Tags | female(s), hand(s), male(s)

What happens when your mother discovers emojis?

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 28.5.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Summary | The author of the article talks about her 70-year-old mother's use of emojis. Since she's had an iPhone, her mother has been using emojis a lot. Some news media have been covering the emoji phenomenon for a while now; they claim that emojis are like hieroglyphics, and that digital natives communicate using a special code, unfamiliar to adults. The author claims that we still use and need words, but emojis add more nuance and are straighforward.
Image Description | Photograph of a woman in a room full of emojis; she has a big 'smiling face with sunglasses emoji' on her head.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s)

:) them or :( them, emojis make our messages feel more like us

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 14.6.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat
Summary | Some people are happy about the new 'emojify' feature that Apple offers, and some people don't like it and think that future generations won't be able to understand the English language. Famous cognitivist Stephen Pinker argues in favor of such communicative features; people adapt their language to the medium they use. If people text or tweet, it doesn't mean they won't be able to communicate in other ways; the same holds true for emojis. Emojis are useful to convey information that is hard to transmit via text (e.g. tone of voice, facial expressions). Having representative emojis (e.g. different skin colors) is also important since they help construct users' identity. Some people are not totally happy with the set of emojis offered now; they still convey certain ideologies and norms (e.g. about gender).
Image Description | Photograph of a woman in a room full of emojis; she has a big 'smiling face with sunglasses emoji' on her head.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s)

Social media mimics the intimacy we yearn for - but fails to deliver

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 9.3.2016
Language | English
Topic Tags | social media, technology-free
Summary | Opinion piece- The author argues that humans are social, and that the great quantity of social media apps is there to satisfy our cravings for social relationships. When the author went to his hometown in Nigeria, he got to experience offline relationships. He thinks that social media companies know everything about their users and manipulate them. They also offer their users virtual communities that cannot provide deep relationships. There are some valuable everyday experiences that we can only live offline.
Image Description | Photograph of a group of women holding the "#bring back our girls" signs.
Image Tags | female(s)

"I worried people would forget me": can teenagers survive without social media?

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 18.6.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, smartphone, social media, technology-free, youth
Summary | Interview with several teenagers or "digital natives" that had to talk about their experience of living without social media for a few days. Were they able to do it? Teenagers spend a lot of time online everyday and are almost addicted to their digital devices; they often sleep with their smartphone. The experience was well received; the participants said that it was a positive experience (they felt happier, more productive, and slept better). Some were able to live without their phone for a couple days and some for a couple weeks. However, they wouldn't be able to do it longer. They like being available all the time, and without a phone they felt that they were missing out on a lot of things, especially with their friends.
Image Description | Series of seven photographs portraying the young interviewees doing some sort of non-digital activities (sports, cooking, music etc.)
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

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