How Social Media Is Changing The Way We Learn?

     Social Media, no doubt, is an integral part of most of our lives. We spend significant amount of our time every day on various social networking sites, blogs etc. I find myself spending a lot of time on Twitter and blogs. So, the focus of today's post is how social media has changed the way we learn and consume data.

     In this regard yesterday I found this very interesting post on mindflash titled "Social Media Has Changed Learning: A Few Answers Via Tweet Chat." Bill Cushard, the author of this post, participates in weekly tweet chat called #Irnchat where a group of learning professionals discuss issues and ideas in the workplace learning space. One of the #Irnchat sessions was centred around "Social Media Has Changed Learning". The discussion uncovered two of the very interesting facts which I would like to share.

• Learning At the Point of Need

     Social Media has allowed us to learn anything, whenever we need it. One of the participants of #Irnchat discussed having access to "on demand information" at "point of impulse." YouTube has countless videos almost on any topic. Want to learn HTML, you will most certainly find many videos on YouTube that you can learn from. Plus there are hundreds of blogs providing all the valuable information. So I can learn whenever I want to. No more fixed time daily physical classes I need to attend. Social Media has given us more flexibility. This flexibility gives rise to more focused learning.

• Improved quality of Learning

     On social networking sites we can find solutions to our problems from industry leaders and domain experts from around the globe. This certainly increases the quality of information and hence the quality of learning. Want to learn anything, just strike the conversation and people are happy to share. Twitter chats are a great way to learn from industry experts. LinkedIn is a great way to increase your professional connections and hence learning. This power of social media has improved the quality of learning.

What are your thoughts on these? Has Social Media impacted your way of learning as well? Please share in the comments section.