It’s good for you. No, it’s bad for you. It’s great! No, it’s awful.
It seems like every week there’s a new study about whether or not the sky is falling because of Facebook and other Web sites of its ilk. Now the University of New Hampshire offers new research that falls squarely in the sky-is-not-falling category, at least not when it comes to the impact of social media on students’ grades.
A survey of 1,127 University of New Hampshire students pursuing various majors found no link between how much time they spend Facebooking, tweeting, and YouTubing and how well they do in college.
The breakdown: 63 percent of heavy social-media users got high grades, compared with 65 percent of light users. The findings held up for academic slouches, too. Thirty-seven percent of heavy users got lower grades, compared with 35 percent of light users.
The university’s message: “Parents worried that their college students are spending too much time on Facebook and other social-networking sites and not enough time hitting the books can breathe a sigh of relief.”
Or not.
In April, a researcher at Ohio State University found that students who use Facebook reported earning lower grade-point averages than nonusers of the social-networking service. Then again, the researcher said in an interview with The Chronicle that she didn’t have enough data to determine whether Facebook use causes students to do poorly.
What research can prove is that when those students get married there’s a good chance Facebook might help cause their divorce. At least that’s the story until next month, when someone else is bound to tell us how Facebook is saving relationships.
Oh wait, someone already did.
5 Responses to Facebooking Won’t Affect Your Grades, Study Finds. At Least Until Next Month’s Study Tells You It Will.
hughesro - January 7, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Too often news accounts of scientific research fail to inform the public or fail to use research in useful or helpful ways. This is frustrating to scientists and at times these failures can be mislead the public about a topic and can also fail to inform the public about how science is conducted. I find it particularly troubling when a source of information about higher education fails to engage scientific research in a useful and thoughtful manner. In this article Marc Parry provides an example of the worst type of reporting on a scientific study. 1. He presents two studies that seem to come to different conclusions about the impact of “Facebook” on student grades without any consideration of the methods or approaches. 2. He then compounds this weak exploration of the issue with the citation of the relationship between the use of Facebook and divorce. In this case, he cites no research, but merely provide links to other news articles as if these were sources of evidence. 3. Finally, he concludes with a flip statement that next month’s research findings will make counter claims and that all of this is just a matter of “he says, she says” and not really a matter of science. Rather that provide any sort of thoughtful discussion of the evidence regarding the impact of social networking activities on personal relationships or educational outcomes the reader is left with the idea that scientists studying this issue have nothing really useful to say on this topic.
sunday_moring - January 7, 2010 at 7:45 pm
Just one point to add:Time is a special and fixed asset. It may be reasonable to expect that more quality time spent on study would help with grades while it seems hard to fathom that too much time spent on social networking or other entertainment stuff would contribute to grades or no adverse impact on it.
11211250 - January 8, 2010 at 5:41 am
Hughesro, don’t you see that because this is a blog a writer neither needs to be accurate or fair. It’s the new journalism where you tell it like it is? Bloggers don’t need to understand the difference between correlation and causation, especially when writing about the Wired Campus. You have to be controversial, witty, and superior to get people to read you, and most of all to get idiots like me wasting my time trying to fix the world by writing comments drawing attention to your blogging.
swish - January 8, 2010 at 11:28 am
Gee whiz, lighten up. Of course it’s a “weak exploration of the issue” — it’s just a little news item, giving us the gist of the story and some links in case we want to find out more. The author is not required, here, to delve into the methods and approaches of the two studies and give a thoughtful discussion of the evidence.Maybe the flippancy went a bit too far. But I appreciate the implied reminder that we should all hold onto our skepticism, withhold judgment, and always take headlines with a grain of salt. That’s a message we don’t hear often enough.
josemartins - January 15, 2010 at 4:36 pm
O estudo da Universidade de New Hampshire analisa o prejuízo emocional incitado pelo excesso de informação ao qual estão expostos os utilizadores do Facebook porque o ser é humano é lento a processar emoções e o ritmo do Facebook não ajuda.O Estudo da Universidade de Ohio compara os resultados académicos de 219 estudantes e diz que os estudantes ao usarem o Facebook enquanto estudavam tiveram notas entre 3 e 3,5 valores numa escala de 5, reconhecendo que estudavam apenas entre 1 a 5 horas por semana. Os que não utilizaram o Facebook alcançaram uma média entre 3,5 e 4 valores, dedicando 11 horas aos livros. Para Karpinski, não se pode dizer que o Facebook faz com que o estudante tenha notas baixas mas está relacionado de alguma forma e é preciso estudar o problema.Os professores deveriam aproveitá-lo de alguma forma, talvez como ferramenta educativa. Há interesse em desenvolver aplicações educativas nas redes sociais, iniciando uma discussão sobre o uso do Facebook na escola.