How do you gather your information? Search Engines or Social Networks?

Mike Hickinbotham on LinkedIn asked an interesting question:

"Will people prefer social networks over search engines to gather information"

Here's my response...

Social networks are taking over from search engines for the less specific questions we have in life.

Google is great at finding specific things. It's like using the card catalogue or computer at the library. You type in a name and find a response.

Social networks are more like wandering through the library just looking and every now and then someone comes along and suggests 'Hey, this one's good'. I follow specific people on Twitter and it's like having a personal news feed of current articles and latest events.

The third element for me is Wikipedia. It's great as a starting point and giving background information. It's like asking the Librarian, 'What do you know about this...' and then they point you on to further info.

What are your thoughts? How do you gather your information about the world?