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Strollerderby
Facebook Lowers Grades How Much?
Facebook can kill good grades. At least that’s what a study of U.S. college students has shown. (Pause here to update your status with a link to this alarming news.)
OK. Now, what were we talking about? That’s right! Researchers found that students who had Facebook accounts and were active users earned grades that were 20 percent lower than their peers who did not use the social networking site (or at least had the good sense to not log on when cramming for an exam).
The typical grade point average of FB users was 3.06. Non-FB users?
3.82!
This flies in the face of how we look at young “tech savvy” students today, getting all the accolades for being multi-taskers and able to take calls while making coffee AND texting their votes for American Idol (all, of course, while putting together a college-level research paper). Facebook is a distraction and keeps its users from staying focused.
This study is also a cold bucket of water in the face of forward-thinking educators who want to incorporate things like instant messaging and other features of social media in teaching methods at younger and younger grade levels. While those things might be easily picked up by students, they could, this study shows, undermine the effect of, you know, teaching and learning.
The take away for parents? Cut. Off. Facebook. (At least during homework time.)
The study, conducted on 219 students age 19 to 54 by researchers at the Open University of the Netherlands and the Ohio State University, will be published in the journal of Computers and Human Behavior.
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[...] FB Status Update: Social Networking Lowers Grades Big Time [...]
Top 5 Worst Birthday Gifts for Girls | Strollerderby commented on Sep 08 10 at 4:30 pmGretchen Powers commented on Sep 08 10 at 2:41 pmThe studies were done at universities. Parents can’t (and shouldn’t) directly control how their children spend their time once they’re in college, the students need to do this for themselves. As for highschoolers…that’s another story, they probably shouldn’t be on FB at all.
bob commented on Sep 08 10 at 3:48 pmIn other news, people seen standing in this line were overweight.
Siobhan commented on Sep 08 10 at 3:52 pmI’m sorry but this is bunk. I was still in college when facebook first came out, back in the day when it required a college email for the creation of an account. Let me tell you something, EVERYONE joined facebook right away. Everyone was on facebook, except maybe those students hell bent on being the top of the class. I don’t believe that this is a causal relationship. I think the type of people who don’t have fbook accounts are the type of people who’d have higher gpa’s even without facebook.
Manjari commented on Sep 08 10 at 3:53 pmThat’s too funny, bob.
bob commented on Sep 08 10 at 4:09 pmThat seems fair, Siobhan. I probably should have said people standing in that line were “more overweight than those who avoided it” and made it a line for Coca-Cola. But then everyone would be wondering would that had to do with the picture.
cao commented on Sep 08 10 at 5:22 pmFunny just yesterday I weas reading a study that showed college students who use facebook are more likely to return for their second year than those that do not use Facebook. Is 2 years at 3.2 better than one at 3.8? Ah studies, what do they really tell us in the end? http://wiredcampus.chronicle.com/blogPost/The-Latest-Stay-in-School-Tool/26705/
Rebecca commented on Sep 08 10 at 8:45 pmJust wanted to add that being an active user of Facebook does not indicate that someone is tech savvy. My kid sister uses FB more than anyone else I know, but she can do basically nothing on the computer except type papers and change her wallpaper. You might be surprised at how many college students are exactly like her. They really know very little about computers, which is why many colleges require a basic computing course that covers the basics of Microsoft Office, e-mailing, and other very basic computer use.
ChiLaura commented on Sep 10 10 at 10:45 amAmen, bob! Filing this under “Needless studies of the obvious.” Then again, I’m a bit of a techno-phobe.
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