The excitement and news-worthiness of social media derives from the fact that, as all social media are communication from many to many, it is a fiercely effective way to collect a reference group around any issue. Something that used to demand a lengthy campaign of communication from few to many, can now happen in an instant with no discernible effort at all. For advertising and marketing this has enormous implications in terms of reaching potential consumers. For education, or moreover the girl who could not sit still, social media can create a connection with a community that she needs to thrive with her own potential. "Finding your tribe" as Robinson (2009) calls it, is immensely important especially for the young learner who is not only faced with learning skills but finding their place in the world. In most cases there is no specialist or psychologist to point the student in the direction of his or her natural abilities. Social media, at best, can facilitate an authentic learning environment in the sense that there exists a community in which and with which to learn.
This is not to say that social media in itself is the salvation for every failing student. There is no added value in the existence of social media tools if there is no motivation or effort involved from the part of the student. Social media is however an avenue for the growing number of people who find it hard to find an anvil to their hammer. And at its very best it can help the people who have misplaced their hammer in finding it.
While there was a tech-utopia period in e-learning (or multimedia learning in those days) towards the turning of the millenia, it seems to be the technically fairly simple social media practices that have changed the world. The struggle away from old methods of text-based learning has turned in on itself in the sense that social media tools are largely text-based (though video and audio follow suit they haven't caught on in a major way). In fact, it is the two simple but novel ways of publishing text that seem to have had the most effect: the tag and the comment.
The tag is most commonly only a one word definition for a subject. Yet the fact that anyone can tag, anyone can participate in defining the subject holds great power. The comment is similarly only a short text but the fact that anyone can participate and anyone can comment on a comment generates a contextual web around the subject. With an infinite amount of things to comment on, only the commentators genuinely interested on the subject will gather around it. Genuine interest sparks relevant conversation. Much more so than university degrees or job titles. Not all subjects enjoy intelligent discussion, but social media does afford a chance to discuss and the chance to find your tribe.
So, in accordance to the title of this text: e-learning and social media have not moved us away from text at all but completely the opposite. They afford us new ways of using text and in so doing take us deeper into text. The fact that what we write is now published and read and reacted upon in ways that no-one could have predicted, is generating a new future for us. How that future will play out, is for anyone to tag and comment.
