Self-Directed Learning

Technology has positively influenced educational development for teens and young adults. However, the learning does not simply stop when individuals do not have a specific academic related task to perform. Self-directed learning has become largely prevalent in society today, as there is a shift toward motivating one’s self to learn the most up to date and relevant information regarding a subject of interest or educational value. There is a growth in youth seeking education outside of classroom material, and using technology to do so. This concept encourages youth to seek out political, social and economic movements around the world because these are the subjects that impact their daily lives. Social media and online publications are a highly used resource to stay educated about what is going on. Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown suggest, “the kind of learning that will define …show more content…
The advancement of technology simply makes more information available, giving students more opportunity to not only complete their school work efficiently, but also for them to engage in self-directed learning online. With everything in society fluctuating as time passes, consuming mass media is unavoidable. Today’s society tends to base a lot of its decisions around the idea of popular culture. Popular culture can be defined as a culture that is preferred and adored by various amounts of people and a mass culture. Therefore, the forms of mass media that people tend to consume are influenced by those around them. Using the idea of social media as an example, if a friend has a Facebook account, that one friend is going to try to get all his or her other friends to make an account as well so they have the opportunity to communicate with one another through the means of social media. With entertainment being so popular in every age group, it has a large impact on