Binge drinking was once the chief bête noire of sensible college students. But these days it seems that booze is less of a threat to undergraduates’ GPA’s than another possible addiction: the Internet.
In a survey conducted this year, 18.5 percent of students at Michigan State University said Web surfing or computer-game playing had either hurt their grades or caused them to drop a class altogether. By contrast, only 8.5 percent of the students said drinking had worsened their grades.
Michigan State’s study also found that men were more likely than women to suffer from obsession with the Internet. About one-quarter of men reported that their online ventures had hurt their course work, while just 13 percent of women said the same, according to the Associated Press. —Brock Read
