Beginning of National Conference

Thursday night, after our weekly PRSSA meeting, myself, my professor and two others all got into a car with our suitcases and backpacks and started making the drive to the Akron-Canton Airport. We had a 6 a.m. flight on Friday morning, so we stayed at an alumni's house and left her house at 4:15 a.m. and made drove the last 45 minutes to the airport. We arrived to the airport a little after 5 a.m. and went through all the procedures of getting your bags check and going through TSA. Finally a little after 5:30 a.m. we made it to our gate and started boarding our plane within the next 10 to 15 minutes. The flight was about an hour and a half, so around 7:30 a.m. we landed at the Atlanta airport. This airport was large enough, so in order to get to the baggage claim area you could either walk or jump on the plane train that ran within the airport. The interesting part was taking an Uber to our hotel. I say this because there were a total of seven of us and we all crammed into a Suburban.

Once we finally arrived at our hotel, we all decided it was nap time, as most of us had slept for a maximum of three hours. After sleeping for a few hours we decided to do a little exploring and go out find somewhere to eat. We ended up choosing the Hard Rock Cafe, and the funny thing was that they served Pepsi products instead of Coca-Cola, which is located in Atlanta. We then went and checked into the conference and headed back to our room to get ready for Opening Night Celebration, which was happening later that evening. After the kick off session we did a little more exploring through Atlanta, and by 10 p.m. we were all so tired, we decided it was time to go to sleep, as we had at the welcome session in the morning at 9 a.m.

After getting a good night sleep, we all got up around 7:30 a.m. and began getting ready for the day. We started this morning off with the Welcome, Keynote Address, Awards and Chapter Roll Call Session. We listened to Scott Williamson, Vice President of Public Affairs and Communication at Coca-Cola. After Scott, we then went through awards, and the ONU PRSSA Chapter won Star Chapter for the sixth year in a row. We then went through, and listed all 344 PRSSA chapters, and representatives did a little chant to show they were here. We then had a two hour break, where we decided to go to the food court mall and grab a quick lunch at Firehouse Subs. After lunch I then attended three, one hour long sessions. These sessions were, How Your Portfolio Gets You Hired, The "Realization" of Health Care: Using Social to Reach Those Gone Digital and The Blueprint: Corporate Communications. All of these sessions were very insightful and each had something completely different to offer. I enjoyed attending The "Realization" of Health Care because I was able to see the amazing presentation of both my professor, Dr. Alisa Agozzino and internship supervisor, Beth Keehn

I am having such a great time in Atlanta so far and have learned tons in just one day. I am looking forward to the rest of conference and spending time with this great group of friends, I am here with. I also can't wait to explore the city of Atlanta more, as we will have some free time with in these next few days. I am definitely not going to be ready to head back to Ada anytime soon, so hopefully Tuesday doesn't come too fast.

Video Assignment

Throughout my time of working in retail I have come to learn a few things, and one of them being the
correct way to fold a shirt. So for my how to video I decided to I have worked in retail for a total of three years. I have been told by my friends that they hate folding their laundry when I'm around because I always have this look telling them they're folding incorrectly.

Don't worry the steps to folding a shirt properly are actually quite simple. Below are the steps I mentioned in my video.

1. Lay the shirt face down on a folding surface
2. Fold the right side first
-Fold about one-third of the body toward the center of the shirt. The fold line starts at the center of the shoulder and ends at the tail.
3. Do the same thing to the left side
4. Make a fold of several inches of the shirt tail
5. Fold up the bottom half of the partially folded shirt
6. Turn the shirt over to see your neatly folded shirt

You can watch my video below for a visual demonstration of each step.

Now that you know how to properly fold a shirt, you will be able to impress your mom when you come home with all your clothes neatly folded in your bag for break. After a lot of practice you will also become very good at folding your laundry quickly and won't need to leave your clean clothes in the basket in the corner anymore because folding your clothes will now be a quick and easy task.

Age Limits on Social Media

Over the years, kids have been joining popular social media sites at younger ages. "The minimum age Battersby, 2015)
for opening a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr or Snapchat account is 13. To open a Kik account you need to be 17 and the minimum age is even older for Vine, Tinder, Yik Yak and YouTube." (Battersby, 2015)

Susan McLean says, "If I report a kid on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, they would shut it down." (Battersby, 2015) The primary concern with children under the minimum age are keeping children safe from predators and cyberbullies. From personal experience, I definitely see children  entering the social media scene at a much younger age than I ever did. I remember joining Facebook when I was 14 years old, and joined the summer right before my freshman year of high school. I also didn't join Twitter and Instagram until the summer before my senior year of high school. I never felt I joined any of these sites really late, but I do know once I joined these my sister who is seven years younger than me was right behind me. I would say my sister had to be 9 or 10 years old when she joined Facebook and around 11 years old when she joined Instagram and Twitter. I also believe both my sister and I joined Snapchat within the same day. 

"The Children's eSafety Commissioner, Alastair MacGibbon, said the technical age limit is arbitrary and it is a parent's responsibility to assess when their child has the social skills for social media, such as judging what to share and with whom." (Battersby, 2015) Parents should know when their children are setting up social media accounts and should also be monitoring these accounts to make sure their child isn't being cyber bullied or being the bullier. Depending on the age of the child, parents may also want to have their child's passwords, and their child should give it to them willingly, especially if their under the minimum age. 

It's amazing to see how a difference of seven years can have such different impact with social media. I think it'll be interesting to see how social media networks will react to kids at younger and younger ages joining their sites. Besides looking at what the sites are going to do, it'll also be interesting to see what the younger generous do. Will they continue to join these sites at younger ages and become glued to their phones or will these kids go back to playing outside and putting the phones down?

Battersby, L. (2015, October 17). Retrieved October 31, 2015, from http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/what-age-is-appropriate-to-join-social-media-20151015-gk9nat.html