Month / February 2022

by sdratch2a218457e8

What Google says, goes.

travel
food
fashion

Every student in my Digital Journalism class is considered to be a part of this “Google Generation.” More specifically, anyone who is born after the year 1993 is a part of this generation, as years prior to this were not as dominated by the internet (Rowlands 2008). Most of this class is make up of twenty year olds, who have grown up surrounded by the internet. Babies eyes are glued to their iPads, kids starting at the ages of 10 having their own personal facebook account. Our worlds are controlled by the world of Google that is so unknown to us.

Google is a type of umbrella term, that owns different search tools, advertising services, publishing and statistical tools, hardware, different operations and an abundance of other services (Wikipedia)! As complicated as this idea and the mechanics of how Google works might seem to us, they make finding just about anything quick and easy for us users! 

Planning a weekend trip takes a lot of statistical thinking depending on distance of places you want to visit considering you only have a weekend to travel, but with Google planning these weekend getaways to unknown places can be simple! Below I am going to go through step by step about how to plan a trip only using Googles resources using my own personal experience.

This past weekend I traveled to London, England. Below I am going to explain how I planned a successful weekend in London with the help of Google:

  • Prior to arrival, we had to book our flights and hotel. There are many different places to stay in London, so I did research on the most central areas. Google flights helped me search for good priced tickets, as I spend a lot of money traveling and do try and save when I fly. I also searched for hotels on Googles main search engine and was able to book my hotel straight from Google. I was able to book my flight through this search tool.
  • In order to pack efficiently, I had to look into what the weather was to be like. The Google Chrome store allowed me to download a weather extension where I was able to look into the weekend forecast. An umbrella is a must when travelling to this rainy yet beautiful destination!
  • London is large and definitely needs planning when traveling here. Being that I had three full days, I was able to see different areas. When choosing the specific areas to go to, I made sure to use Google Maps to see how far each place was. Google Maps has different sections for walking, driving, or taking the train so I utilized all three as most of our transportation was via the tube and then walking around that area.
  • I used the basic Google search engine was able to inform me about the must eat restaurants in London. After finding many different places and using Google Maps to understand the area they were in, I was able to find amazing restaurants to eat at that were only a walk from our hotel!

This weekend trip was definitely a success and would have been made much more difficult without the features that Google has to offer!

by sdratch2a218457e8

First Week in Digital Journalism

This class, Digital Journalism: Blogging and Storytelling in the 21st Century looks to teach us students how to manage web information, build our unique digital identity by working with our own blog vid WordPress, and truly being able to define digital journalism. 

Being a Public Relations major in the college of Journalism and Communications, I learn about many different forms of journalism. Digital journalism is an umbrella term for different types of online journalism. The media controls a lot of the world in todays day and age, so fully understanding digital journalism is imperative for communications companies and is detrimental in advertising. Whether it be Twitter, Linkden, Instagram or TikTok, each media platform is able to portray the same type of information in completely different ways. Videos and information are able to be easily skewed and edited which results in the spreading of false information to millions of individuals who view this information from the internet. 

The social media platforms that I personally utilize are mainly Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. Being that I am 20 years-old, I am a part of iGen, which is a generation that has grown up being surrounded by social media. That being said, I am sure if other 20 years-olds were asked this same question, you would receive similar answers for the most part. Each are used for my own personal entertainment along with places where I post my own content.

A study done by INSIDER Intelligence looked into the amount of Gen Z users for said popular social media platforms. They found that 42 million Snapchat users are Gen Z, TikTok having 37.3 million, and Instagram with 33.3 million Gen Z’s (Petrock 21). These are large numbers and it is no surprise that these platforms are swarmed with younger users. Each different social media platforms have their own specific uses, but it is up to the user to make it more personable to their own interests. As previously mentioned, these applications being top used by both iGen and Gen Z is common. Each of these social media platforms allow for individuality and creation within the app. Each of these applications also allow for easy communication with friends. A lot of kids today are in the “everyone else has snapchat, how will I be able to talk to them?” sort of mindset.

These platforms also offer different algorithms depending on the platform. One example of this would look into the For You Page (fyp) on Tik Tok. Each persons For You page is customized by Tik Toks algorithm based on what video the user likes, saves, and the amount of times the watch a certain video. This is how TikTok makes their platform customizable depending on the user.

We discussed the revolution from web 1.0 to 2.0. Web 1.0 was the start of this evolving concept called the world wide web. This was the most basic form that has since revolutionized into something one would not have imagined before. Prior to this class, I did not know their was a different between the internet and the web. The internet came first and the web is what revolutionized the world online to what it is today such as www, HTML, URI and HTTP.

We also discussed blogging, since throughout this semester we are going to be making our own blog. This blog is going to be personalized to us depending on what we are choosing to make or topic on and in order to create a strong blog we need to learn more information on blogging in general. prior to this class, I believed that blogs and personal websites were the same. This in fact is not the case. Blogs are more personalized and allow comments from other users making the website more personable. Being able to make a personal website log, better known as blog, throughout this class is a very personable way of learning, as each of us are going to be using different tools to create our blogs. 

Another topic that striked interest was a conversation on fake media. Videos and images are able to be easily skewed and uploaded for thousands to view and believe this false propaganda. There is so much fake news in recent years that media trust worldwide has declined since 2020 8% (Djordjevic)! One example of this posted below is a Youtube video trying to expose fake information about Mark Zuckerberg, that tricked the entirety of the class. While on the conversation, Facebook is a type of social network that simultaneously is used for professional and non-professional networking, to chat or inform, provide content and allow for collaboration all at the same time. While such platforms such as Twitter and TikTok are not used for all of this.

A slightly different version of fake news of a Burger King Whopper
by sdratch2a218457e8

Valencia Adventures

Valencia is an amazing beach town that offers both a relaxing and an adventurous weekend! The Valencia Jeep Tours is a 4-hour excursion for those who are looking for an enjoyable yet thrilling experience. Here is a Youtube video to show what this excursion is all about:

by sdratch2a218457e8

About me!

Hello travellers! My name is Sammy Dratch. I am 20 years-old was born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I am studying Public Relations at the University of Florida (https://www.jou.ufl.edu/) and have decided to leave Gainesville for the semester and instead pursue my dream of travelling the world, so here I am! With a strong interest in travel and fashion, this blog will be the last travel guide that you need!