By online I mean on the Internet.  I deeply value learning, and spend most of my free time continuing to learn as much about many things as possible. This is why trying to measure how much I get to learn per minute when online is interesting to me :)Â
From my initial analysis here is a list of sites/applications I use, in order of my learning per minute ratio:
1. Google Reader - my RSS feeds themselves are probably worth their own post, but in general I can get a great glimpse of what is interesting by scanning my RSS feeds.
2. Twitter - the more time I spend on Twitter the more nuggets of information I find. Â I am not following that many people but following the trends is surprisingly effective.
3. Email - more and more things that are important to me are arriving in my inbox every day.  Companies and products are maintaining a connection with me through email.  So every minute I am reading email I am learning about people or things that are important to me.
4. The Economist - subscribe to the paper edition, but find myself listening to or reading the online edition quite a bit.  The audio edition is fantastic for doing errands - you can get through half the magazine in three hours without even noticing.  Even if my retention is less when multi-tasking while listening I am still picking up more than if I didn't have the magazine or was listening to Pandora.
5. NPRÂ - this is a super broad category, but for me it mostly means "Morning Edition" and "This American Life". Â Both programs are available on the iPhone and are free. Â Listening to "Morning Edition" while getting ready in the morning is a great way to be plugged into the days news in a very passive and entertaining way.
6. Wikipedia - after weeding through lots of articles that are not entirely related to what I want to learn about, there is plenty of information that is relevant and I enjoy learning from the site.
7. LinkedIn - every time I come across someone I look them up in Linked In.  I do this for companies too to try to see if I can find out more about the people that work there.  Each profile provides insight into the company/person/etc.
Surprisingly what is not on the list:Â Facebook. Â I learn almost nothing when using Facebook. Â Facebook provides tons of information about people and things going on in their lives but I rarely feel that I am learning anything about them from using the site.
This list isn't exhaustive but it jumped into my head. Â I find myself constantly trying to learn more and as great as the Internet is a tool I was surprised to realize how much value I derive from Twitter vs how little I derive from Facebook.
