Fundamentals of Interactive Journalism

So last week, Google released maps and lists charting everything from online users’ most frequent questions on a national scale to specifically New York City’s search penchant. The rest of the story is pretty boring and doesn’t reveal much in the way of novelty (national users searched “American Idol”-related phrases while NYC-ers searched obscure architects and physicists), though, and the idea that Google is tracking our searches on a mass basis is pretty much old news at this point.

What I find infinitely more amusing and interesting is the fact that Google tracks trends, beyond the flu trends , to the personal web history – on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis. If you’re signed into Gmail, Google tracks and displays this information via lists and bar charts. Your most frequent search terms, your frequency of activity this past year, how many searches you conduct per week on average, what day of the week you search most frequently, and what time of day you use Google search most often. You can view the results overall, over the past 7 days, the last 30 days and the last year.

Overall, my search activity spikes on Wednesdays with a pretty symmetrical upside-down bell curve over the course of the week. My search times peak between noon and 5 p.m.. My search traffic was practically non-existent from January through April when I was working full-time… but then steadily rose through late Spring and Summer months before skyrocketing in October (probably from the Jewish holidays and boredom/procrastination).

Screenshot of Google Trends web history bar charts

Over the last 7 days, my search activity spiked on Sundays and I averaged a high of around 14 searches between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.
The #1 phrase entered through Google was the Interactive Fundamentals blog. The top 5 all had to do with word game and free book searches. Although this week, “women’s health mag” and “non-FDA approved drugs” squeezed in at #4 and #5, respectively.

The ready availability of all this information can be a boon and a bane. Fascinating statistical log or Big Brother watching over you? The way I see it, it’s not really watching over me since the info is just one of millions of data sets like it in existence and for the most part, is used only to fill in data sets for the national search rankings. To the part of me that is still skeptical and ever-weary, though, it is somewhat unsettling, seeing all that information collected there and knowing it’s stored somewhere else, either a few miles away or much further.

By Maya Pope-Chappell

Photo by Unknown

Are the days of dating really over?  New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow says it is.

In the article titled “The Demise of Dating,” Blow writes:

“Under the old model, you dated a few times and, if you really liked the person, you might consider having sex.  Under the new model, you hook up a few times and, if you really like the person, you might consider going on a date.”

While Blow raises a good argument, one that I agree with, he doesn’t really address the why.  Why is “hooking up” more prevalent than it was in years past?  Although he offers a quick explanation at the end, I would like to offer my two cents.

I think the answer lies partly in technological advances.

As technology grows, so does the distance between people.  Nowadays, people are less connected in ways they weren’t before.  Love letters have been replaced with emails, Post-its with text messages, and phone conversations are nearly obsolete.  Done are the days when relationships based on courtship and compatibility ruled.

Like DSL and Wi-Fi, we want a quick and instant connection; a connection that results in instant gratification with little work, time, or effort.

Which brings me to the concept of “hooking-up”.  Instead of wasting time getting to know one another, many rather cut to the chase and figure the rest out later.  This often leads to emotional detachment, hurt feelings, and unrealistic expectations.

How’s that for an instant message.