Spend as much time on Facebook as you want—it won’t affect your GPA, a new study says.
Researchers at Northwestern University found no connection between time spent on social-networking sites and academic performance. The study, the results of which appear in the latest issue of Information, Communication & Society, included responses from approximately 1,000 first-year students at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Sites such as Facebook and MySpace had no effect on grades, despite how often students used them or how many they used.
Eszter Hargittai, associate professor of communication studies and sociology at Northwestern, suggests that the benefits of social-networking sites may cancel out the distractions they pose.
“You could go on there and waste your time,” she said. “On the other hand, you can connect with your classmates, get information about homework assignments, get to know people better, and feel more comfortable engaging with them on academic matters.”
A past study at Ohio State University suggested that students on Facebook earn lower GPA’s than nonusers. However, the scholar who did that research later said that she lacked enough data to determine whether that conclusion was true.
11 Responses to Study Finds No Link Between Social-Networking Sites and Academic Performance
arrive2__net - July 15, 2010 at 5:52 pm
You don’t remember all that much of the literal detail you learned for your college exams … for many years. The big benefit of college is that it develops your brain and mind so that you can tackle difficult and demanding tasks and challenges in the future. It seems to me that these social media would open interesting areas of brain and mental development, including a need to originate a website, networking agendas, written thoughts, etc. So it seems to me that these social media would be good for your educational development, on average. Bernard SchusterArrive2.net
bbudd - July 15, 2010 at 6:20 pm
The trouble with social media is it stunts the development of social skills. Now we learn that time spent on social media does not damage GPA, which implies it’s benign. What a tragedy. And precisely the mistaken impression that social development stunting craves.
kimbra - July 15, 2010 at 9:32 pm
I might find this article reassuring, if it weren’t so misleading. The study in question focused only on first-year students, and traditional ones at that. (A read through of the study revealed the sample included mostly 18- and 19-year-olds and a few (3%) 20-29-year-olds). What about the rest of us? The research cannot tell us whether or not older, nontraditional students’ academic performance is as unaffected by their SNS habits. (Yes, we 30- and 40-something students also spend time on Facebook.) Nor does it address how students in their second, third, or fourth year of college might be affected when they face more complex courses that may demand greater time, attention, effort, and concentration.Such a broad generalization based on one narrowly defined study, along with the suggestion that college students should be unconcerned about how much time they spend on SNS, is, at best, naive and, at worst, irresponsible.
ldorland - July 16, 2010 at 6:33 am
Talk about broad generalizations. Yet another repeat of the “scary social media” press meme by bbudd. Yawn.”The trouble with social media is it stunts the development of social skills.”Huh? Which students? Which skills? What research backs up that statement? Just because you hear it all the time doesn’t make it generally true. Look how people latched on to that Ohio State study without noticing or reporting it was seriously flawed.We are way too quick to latch onto things that confirm our own beliefs without any nuanced analysis or discussion.
nacrandell - July 16, 2010 at 7:25 am
“Sites such as Facebook and MySpace had no effect on grades, despite how often students used them or how many they used.”Really? This seems to be extremely broad conclusion. Does the user view only human “friends” comments/photos/postings or does the user view corporate/causes “friends” comments/photos/postings?If it is 9:00 am Monday and a course’s mid-term is at 9:00 Thursday, then there is a finite time to study, 72 hours. How can non use or excessive use be equivalent? Will there soon be a study determining that partying had no effect on grades, despite “how often students used them or how many they used”?
zambellab - July 16, 2010 at 10:27 am
It’s always hard to reconcile conflicting research. How does this story intersect with the research summarized in the Boston Globe earlier this month, http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/04/what_happened_to_studying/, which says that students are only studying about 14 hours a week? As someone has already mentioned, there are a limited number of hours in a week. If you’re spending them on social media, you aren’t spending them on other tasks related to your job as a student…. Do the math!
ldorland - July 16, 2010 at 1:34 pm
It’s interesting to me what gets blamed in the eternal outcry about how students don’t study enough. For many years, it was television. The sky is falling! Kids are watching too much TV when they should be studying! Now the devil is social media and TV is hardly mentioned. When I was a kid, the biggest time-waster for me (if you frame everything in terms of “you should be studying instead”) was reading. The MacArthur Foundation has a ton of work from the last few years showing the benefits of online engagement, and it should be better known than it is. I’m advocating for a move away from simplistic “button pushing” articles and away from the demonization of incredible tools for social connection.”Total Time – Time of Facebook = Not enough studying” is a vast over-simplification and in fact a distractor from serious analysis of ALL the factors that might be involved.
wdaven47 - July 16, 2010 at 1:57 pm
This is self-reporting information by students. Remember the majority of the generation that responded would not admit to poor performance since it isn’t their fault in the first place. Since the live in “La-La” land of Mr. Rogers anyway, they could receive a failing grade but only surmise that it really wasn’t their grade by a mistake by the instructor. Considering the standards in education these days is so low that the worst student in the class gets an “A” because the instructor doesn’t want to be bothered with negotiation and appeal issues. What a crock!
dekdek - July 17, 2010 at 7:46 am
the doi should be given so that readers can check details of research
urspider - July 17, 2010 at 5:43 pm
Nothing wrong with social media, gaming, or other “evil Internet applications” per se. BUT does the study account for WHEN students use FB?I know that my students, in their informal self-studies of media use, report that they often feel a pressure to use FB when they are studying or trying to write. They report having to close FB to do their best work and…to those of you who automatically think face-to-face time is better…they also need to dodge friends in our library. It’s more a social space now than a refuge for doing strong work alone or with a team.It’s multitasking and crammed calendars that lead to scattered thinking and weak writing, not FaceBook. And someone needs to study that aspect of students’ media use.
patter_lake - July 28, 2010 at 2:07 pm
I disagree with the study findings. I think that had they polled more qulified students, their findings would have been significantly different.