There is a common belief that social media is just a bad habit. And the only thing it does is devour our time.
In reality, if used wisely, this resource can do much more than just help you stay in touch with colleagues and like-minded people—it can also be a source of professional advice. 
It’s no secret that being a programmer is a challenging job. No one person can know every nuance of programming. In many situations, talking to peers can help solve difficult problems. There are plenty of online communities dedicated to programming and related topics.
The ability to quickly find answers to your questions directly affects your working speed and your overall progress in learning a programming language. In this regard, real-time communities are one of the best learning tools.
There’s even a joke that says: A Senior developer differs from a Junior one by how fast they can search for information online.
The hardest part is choosing the most helpful community among the endless options out there. In our opinion, the most useful and promising one is Stack Overflow.
Stack Overflow is a kind of social network for programmers. It’s a globally recognized Q&A platform for developers, created by Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood back in 2008.
What can you find on Stack Overflow?
As Jeff Atwood himself says: “Stack Overflow was built by programmers, for programmers, with the goal of raising the level of programming knowledge worldwide.”
What ideas did the creators implement into the site?
Stack Overflow is an international company with a team of 200 employees and three offices located in London, Denver, and New York.
As of today, around 12 million questions have been asked on Stack Overflow, and over 20 million answers have been given. According to the tags used, the most popular topics include Java, C#, JavaScript, PHP, Android, jQuery, Python, and HTML.
According to Alexa Internet rankings, in May 2018 Stack Overflow was the 53rd most visited website in the world. It receives over 45 million unique visitors every month.
Last year, the platform expanded its offerings by launching a corporate version of its product—Stack Overflow for Teams. This feature allows companies or project teams to discuss questions privately.
Learn, Share, Build — this is the slogan of the Stack Overflow community, and it's the first thing you see when you visit their homepage.
How does Stack Overflow work?
Every year the site conducts developer surveys that explore all aspects of the developer experience—from job satisfaction and job search to education and coding preferences.
In the 2019 Developer Survey conducted by Stack Overflow, nearly 90,000 people from 170 countries took part.
Here are some interesting facts about members of this global developer community:
Stack Overflow is not the only, but definitely the largest “encyclopedia” for programmers, where you can truly find answers to nearly any question. It's a place where developers help one another and build an openly shared base of practical knowledge.
Social media is no longer just a place to chat with people who share your interests. It’s now a powerful tool for exchanging knowledge, collaborating on joint projects, and working more productively.