I Spy ... a Fact

The other day, I attended a presentation by Elmer Soto of Facebook. I often take Facebook for granted as a social media tool because it just seems like such an ingrained part of my daily life. Whose pictures can I creep? Who's commenting on my status?


What I did take away from Elmer's presentation, was that in the United States, Facebook now receives more internet traffic than Google.

So where does this leave us? Maybe you're thinking "umm gee, thanks for the random factoid Megs," or "that's great, now on to something important." But think about what this says about how people are gathering their information these days and just what kind of information we are now finding valuable.

Our curiosity now lies in what the people in our lives (or in some cases, on the fringes of our lives) are up to. We'd rather get a friend's opinion or advice then perform research.

Such is the trend with social media. We want to know what the people who we trust and admire are thinking or doing, not what the "experts" have to say. We don't want to read a book, we'd rather read status updates. I don't need to learn about the outside world, everything I need to know or am interested in learning is streaming through my Facebook homepage.

Welcome to the world of online learning friends. Watching the news now has nothing to do with politics but with whose relationship status has changed and who's posted a new album.

And we have the audacity to wonder why reality TV is so popular?