More than 50% of us have now learned about a major breaking news story via social media. The death of Osama bin Laden being a case in point. That day Twitter hit a new record for tweets as it had its CNN moment.

But as this infographic points out there are pitfalls as well as pluses here.  How often have you read inaccurate reports? Another case in point being that of Colonel Gaddafi. At one point he was both a live and dead as rumours flew around the social web.

This infographic from education portal Schools.com, which pulled research from sources including the Washington Post, Pew Research Center and Reuters, comes on the back of recent research that confirms nearly half of all Americans get some form of local news on a mobile device and that 46% of people get their news online at least three times a week.

Probably no surprise to most of us now that it isn’t Twitter where most pick up social news, but Facebook. Check out this post to see what those stories were that we shared most on Facebook Memology in 20111.