Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 26
Posts 21 - 26

Multitasking ist ein Mythos

(Multi-tasking is a myth)

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Newspaper | St. Galler Tagblatt
Date | 13.12.2014
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | addiction, school, smartphone, technology-free, threat
Summary | A group of students from the College of Economics in St. Gallen (HSG) have launched a campaign to encourage fellow students to put their smartphones away during lectures. Having a smartphone available all the time significantly distracts students from the task at hand. According to a study, every hour spent studying with a smartphone at hand includes 36 minutes of smartphone activity.
Image Description | Photograph/digital image of two monkeys taking notes in a lecture hall.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, smartphone

Ich verzichte auf Facebook, weil es sich schlecht anfühlt

(I'm giving up Facebook because it feels wrong)

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Newspaper | Sonntagszeitung
Date | 11.10.2015
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | addiction, threat
Summary | Douglas Rushkoff, media theory professor at New York University, talks about social and political developments caused by the business of big data. Talking about instant messaging, he says that face-to-face communication suffers from the constant presence and availability of digital communication. The possibility of multi-tasking is tempting, but it is disruptive to personal encounters.
Image Description | Photograph of D. Rushkoff, standing with his arms crossed in front of a door.
Image Tags | male(s)

Gemeinsam einsam: Wir können das Rad nicht zurückdrehen

(Together alone: We can’t turn the clock back)

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Newspaper | Beobachter
Date | 1.4.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | addiction, brain, smartphone, technology-free
Summary | ETH Neuroscientist Arko Ghosh has found out that smartphone use increases the size of the sensory/motoric front cortex of the brain. While many news media have reported his findings, few deeply engaged with his study. They rather just wanted to know from him whether that meant that smartphones were good or bad for the brain. One hotel in the Bernese Alps even advertises their location as particularly attractive because there is no cell phone reception or internet connection. Multiple apps to keep track of one’s smartphone use already exist.
Image Description | A group of four young people are staring at their phones.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone

Der Mann zieht seine Nummer ab

(A man takes off his number)

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Newspaper | Sonntagszeitung
Date | 14.8.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, research/study, smartphone, technology-free
Summary | A 29-year old man has decided to live without a cell phone because it causes anxiety and is not as necessary as everybody thinks. Recent studies have shown that many smartphone users can effectively be labeled as addicts because they check their phones more than 60 times a day. This obsession, paired with the fact that push notifications effect the release of dopamine, confirm the claim that smartphones increase anxiety.
Image Description | Photograph of the 29-year old man, crouching.
Image Tags | male(s)

40 Tage ohne Honig im Tee

(40 days without tea with honey)

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Newspaper | St. Galler Tagblatt
Date | 14.2.2015
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | addiction, Facebook, WhatsApp
Summary | Catholic and Protestant churches of the St. Gallen area are advertising lent season and trying to get people to give up something they value for 40 days. The blue cross also urges people to give up addicting habits for 40 days. Next to alcohol, cigarettes, meat, and sweets, social networks such as Facebook or WhatsApp seem to be popular addicting habits to give up for lent.
Image Description | Digital image of the number 40 in the background, and a burger in the foreground.

Der Punk des neuen Jahrtausends

(The punk of the new millennium)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 5.1.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | addiction, school, smartphone, youth
Summary | In the light of statistics saying that people who look at their smartphones more than 60 times a day are at risk of being addicted, teacher Claudia Senn consciously incorporates smartphone use in her class. She lets students research things on their smartphones in class and lets them listen to music while doing individual exercises in class. While she cannot fully control how students use their devices, she thinks it is important to learn about all the affordances of this new omnipresent technology.
Image Description | Photograph of a teenage girl taking a selfie while doing the hand-horns (rock-on sign).
Image Tags | female(s), selfie, smartphone

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