Is Social Media a Practical Method for Learning?

 In this week's readings, one of the articles I read was about the case study done on high school students and how they use social media platforms for informal learning. The article, titled "Teens and Social Media: A Case Study of High School Students’ Informal Learning Practices and Trajectories," found that students can potentially learn through non-traditional methods, such as social media when it aligns with their interests. The primary themes found within the research were that there are three sorts of informal learning that include "career/future planning, entrepreneurship, and hobbies" (baggy et al. 242).These themes came as no surprise as we are aware that there are algorithms on social media for a reason. However, it was interesting to see career planning as one of the main ones that came up. 

When I think about the concept of learning through social media, I think more about entrepreneurship and hobbies. There have been several instances where people have gone viral for their unique start-ups for their businesses and have grown from there. However, when I think about traditional careers, it's not often that we see the day-to-day of those types of people posted on social media or even glamorized. For hobbies, social media. The younger audience tends to look at the more unconventional artistic type of careers for inspiration and sometimes aspires to be like those people. For example, celebrities, singers, content creators, and others are some of those not as common career paths that can be seen online. 

Given how influential social media is in our society, it can certainly be used as a tool for learning. To discover what's trendy and find ways to engage learners in the classroom. I still think that there should be limitations, though that can be avoided by having structured informal learning for students.