I'm self taught and when I first started, I only looked to tabs. But when I got more serious and got an acoustic, I learned chords and finger picking teqniques. I agree with Rusty, finding a balance between learning riffs and chords/scales is the way to go. Good Riddance by Green Day is probably one of the best songs to get you started with chords and switching between them and with strumming and flat picking as well. Also, check out the Malageuna too, good melody to get your finger picking started.

Here's tabs for both:

Good Riddance

Malaguena