Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 57
Posts 21 - 30

Für kluge Menschen ist Twitter das bessere Tinder

(For smart people Twitter is better than Tinder)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 13.6.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | gender, online dating, research/study, Twitter
Summary | Online dating apps like Tinder clearly put the focus on images. Considering that many womenvalue a sense of humor very highly in a partner, people should be looking for partners on Twitter because that is where most people showcase their wit. A recent dating survery on Twitter has shown that many users are single and looking for a partner and that many follow other Twitter users out of romantic interest. Most however also report not thinking that Twitter is an appropriate platform to ask someone out on a date.
Image Description | Image of a woman in a cafe looking at her smartphone.
Image Tags | female(s), smartphone

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

Generation Blödphone?

(Generation Dumbphone?)

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Newspaper | Der Bund
Date | 11.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | addiction, research/study, smartphone, threat, youth
Summary | A US study has conducted surveys among teenagers asking them how often they go out without their parents, whether they date or have had sex, how much they sleep , etc. The results show that teenagers go out/date less, sleep less, and have sex later in life since the advent of smartphones. Swiss media psychologist Gregor Waller criticizes the study because it bases its conclusions on mere correlation. It leaves out other important developments in the US since 2007 like the financial crisis. An equivalent Swiss study does not show similar results. Most Swiss teenagers continue to have a rich social life despite smartphones. Only about 10% of Swiss teenagers are at risk of smartphone addiction.
Image Description | Graphs showing results of the US study and a portrait of the interviewee (Swiss psychologist Gregor Waller).
Image Tags | chart, male(s)

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

Der Smartphone-Boom geht allmählich zu Ende

(The smartphone boom is slowly wearing off)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 14.2.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | research/study, smartphone
Summary | Recent statistics show that smartphone sales increases are going down across the board. This is due the the saturation of the large markets of North America, Europe, and China. Global frontrunner is Samsung; almost half of all German smartphone users have a Samsung device while less than 20% have an iPhone. Polls have shown that almost 50% think that smartphones are the most important innovation of the 21st century because they have changed our everyday lives so substantially.
Image Description | Slideshows explaining vaguely connected technological issues. (Not really illustrating the article.)

Mein Wort in Bots Ohr

(My word in bot's ear)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 29.6.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, emojis, misunderstanding, research/study
Summary | Chatbots are currently exploding. Some say that by 2020 humans will communicate with chatbots more than with other humans. Chatbots are digital chat partners that help organize one's schedule, keep track of shopping lists, can help book holidays, and provide various other information from within a mesaging app. Polls show, however, that only one in four people would consider using a chatbot right now. That may be because they do not understand all questions yet and there is room for improvement. They are designed to be great digital conversationalists using a lot of emojis.
Image Description | An illustration visualizing the use of many chatbots while shopping at a grocery store.

Brauchen wir ein Emoji mit nicht-binärer Geschlechtsidentität?

(Do we need an emoji with a non-binary gender identity?)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 14.5.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis, gender, research/study
Summary | A new package of emojis will be released soon. One of them represents a person who is neither entirely male nor female, i.e. of non-binary gender identity. It is questionable whether it is worthwhile to represent such a small minority, seeing that there is no redhead emoji either because only 2% of the global population are redheads. A linguist of the research project "What's Up, Germany?" however argues that having a gender inclusive emoji is sending a powerful sign and can affect society via language in the long-term.
Image Description | A Getty image of a woman vomiting a rainbow, a tweet about the gender inclusive emoji, and a few GIFs of celebrities.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s), gifs, male(s)

Diese Emojis solltest du dir beim Flirten sparen

(You should avoid these emojis when flirting)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 24.4.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | emojis, gender, misunderstanding, online dating, research/study
Summary | Emojis can be quite tricky because they can lead to misunderstandings. This is particularly problematic in online dating. The dating app Clover analysed their users' chats to find out which emojis are a success in online dating and which emojis should be avoided. They found out that women like the hearts-for-eyes emoji, the monkeys and other animals, as well as the tongue emoji. They dislike the eggplant emoji and emoijis displaing strength, for instance the biceps of fist emoji. Men like the kissing emoji as well as the cheeky tongue-out emoji. They dislike the ring and the poop emoji.
Image Description | The emojis women/men like and dislike.
Image Tags | emojis

Punkt: Am Ende

(Period: the end)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 31.3.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis, language threat, punctuation, research/study, texting
Summary | The neutral punctuation mark "." is disappearing from our written language. The most likely reason is that with text messages we no longer need a period to tell us when a sentence is finished. Linguists are not worried about the extinction of the period. Language is ever-changing, they say. It is quite sad though, that the period is being omitted more and more and hardly anyone cares. All debates now center around emojis: can Apple just replace the gun emoji with a water pistol one? Is it racist to use a black emoji as a White person?
Image Description | The sunset over the ocean.

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

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