Number of Posts: 25
Posts 21 - 25
Facebook 'makes users lonely and angry as they compare themselves to other people's seemingly perfect lives'
Newspaper | Mirror
Date | 10.11.2015
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | Facebook, research/study, social media, threat
Summary | The Happiness Research Institute conducted a study about social media and the portrayal of users' seemingly perfect and beautiful lives. Users think that other people's lives are better, and they consequently feel sad and angry. In the study, the people who had to quit Facebook saw their happiness level rise, and those who had to continue using the social network didn't see any change. Facebook users seem to be lonely and angry because they constantly compare their life to others', but the seemingly perfect life that other users portray is fake. Although there are advantages in using Facebook, it is important to keep in mind that it also gives people a wrong perception of reality.
Image Description | Series of five photographs: teenage girl looking at her laptop, another teenage girl looking at the laptop, Facebook logo, photograph of Mark Zuckerberg with the dislike button, and another teenage girl with a phone in her hand, looking at her laptop.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, Facebook, female(s), smartphone
Emoji is named as Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year
Newspaper | Mirror
Date | 17.11.2015
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | emojis, word/writing
Summary | The "face with tears of joy" emoji was named word of the joy by the Oxford Dictionary. Emojis are symbols of today's culture and communication, and are replacing traditional forms of communication. There is nowadays a focus on visual communication. Emojis are a new form of communication that allow people to express their emotions, and to go beyond linguistic barriers.
Image Description | Digital image of the "face with tears of joy" emoji, and photograph of a man reading the Oxford Dictionary of English.
Image Tags | dictionary, emojis, male(s)
Want your texts to appear sincere? DON’T use punctuation: Researchers say full stops make messages appear less trustworthy
Newspaper | Mail Online
Date | 8.12.2015
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | language threat, punctuation, research/study, spelling, texting
Summary | A study revealed that text messages that end with a period are considered as less sincere. In text messages, people use punctuation and emoticons to convey emotions and social cues. Also, the language of text messages has a serious impact on the English language. New words (e.g. LOL) have been added to the dictionary, people don't use hyphens anymore due to laziness, deep thoughts and ideas are summed up in 140 characters, and our smartphones correct our spelling so we don't have to learn how to spell words.
Image Description | Photograph of a woman using her phone.
Image Tags | female(s), smartphone
Group Weighs Expansion of the Emoji Vocabulary
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 26.10.2015
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | emojis
Summary | The Unicode Consortium decides which emojis get developed and which do not. Representatives of the most important smartphone companies are members along with “language grammarians”. Still, Unicode’s president is very clear about emojis not being a language because complex ideas cannot be communicated free of ambiguity by using only emojis. Also, different cultures use emojis differently (example of the eggplant emoji meaning a phallus in the US).
Image Description | Digital image: collage of emojis.
Image Tags | emojis
Stop Your 'Dying,' It's Killing Me
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 29.11.2015
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | texting, youth
Summary | Digital writing culture, be it texting or posting on social media, has developed a widespread obsession with grotesque exaggerations. An example would be the fading popularity of LOL while statements such as “I’m literally dying” have become commonplace to express hilarity. Other staples for expressing strong feelings towards something in texting are “feels”, “YAAASS”, or “I can’t even” among many others. Although hyperbole has a long history as a stylistic device, contemporary online culture seems to have reached new levels.
Image Description | Illustration of a skeleton sitting in a coffin and taking a selfie.
Image Tags | male(s), selfie
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