Due to the nature of my major, I used to think of social media mostly as a place to advertise yourself, your skills, and your projects for future jobs. A big part of that is still true, but after the Week 1 readings I think that view is too limited. Social media is not only a place to present yourself. It is also a place where you build a personal learning network.

Most of the learning I have done happened online first. I started by watching YouTube videos on Photoshop, then I got interested in game development in high school, and from there I moved into coding, databases, and building projects. That is why the idea of a PLN makes sense to me. The FutureLearn reading explains a PLN as the network of people, digital tools, and information sources we use to learn both online and offline. That feels accurate to how I already learn. For me that network looks like Youtube, Github, Discord, StackOverflow, documentation, forum, and the people I meet through them.

This connects to the Rajagopal reading because a PLN is not just a random list accounts. It is something you build, maintain, and actually use when you need to learn. A lot of learning comes from hands-on problem solving and making use of all the available resources online such as tutorials, documentation, communities, and people who are more experienced than you.

For me, that makes the networking part of social media much more real than how it appears to be. Open Source Projects on Github are a good example of that, because they let people contribute to real large scale projects, ask questions, and slowly build credibility and skills through actual participation instead of being merely an observer of emerging technology.

Discord is another big part of collaboration stack, where you ask quick questions, share files, and work together with people in real time. One can switch between serious work to multiplayer games and casual talks, which further build trust.

The digital identity part of this week made me think more about how personal and professional identities blend online, even when we try to keep them separate. Friends, recruiters, and even complete strangers can all come across different part of the same online presence and form an impression of who we are. That can be powerful because it allows our ideas to reach people we may never have met otherwise, creating opportunities that would have been almost impossible before social media. At the same time, that reach can work against us because we do not fully control what others post, tag us in, screenshot or share, and once something begins spreading, it can move far beyond the audience it was meant for and lose it’s original meaning along the way.

That idea became more visible when I looked at the Microsoft Messenger study. Microsoft researchers analyzed billions of conversation between millions of users and found that people were only about 6.6 steps apart on average. What matters to me is not just the number itself, but what it says about online spaces. If people are that closely connected, then a post, a comment, or even a screenshot can move much farther than we expect. The same network that helps someone find opportunities, also lets out-of-context information spread just as quickly. That is why building digital identity is not just about looking professional. It is about being intentional with what you share, who you learn from and how you act in public spaces.

I still think social media can help advertise your skills, especially in a field like computer Science. But now I see that as only one part of it. The more important part is that it gives you access to knowledge, collaboration, and people. A good PLN is not about having the most accounts or the most followers. It is about having useful connections and knowing how to learn through them.

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