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Facebook Users Get Lower Grades In College
Hugh Pickens writes "According to a survey of college students Facebook users have lower overall grades than non-users. The study by Aryn Karpinski, an education researcher at Ohio State University, found that Facebook user GPAs are in the 3.0 to 3.5 range on average, compared to 3.5 to 4.0 for non-users and that Facebook users also studied anywhere from one to five hours per week, compared to non-users who studied 11 to 15 or more hours per week. Karpinski emphasized that correlation does not equal causation and that the grades association could be caused by something else. 'I'm just saying that there's some kind of relationship there, and there's many third variables that need to be studied.' One hypothesis is that students who spend more time enjoying themselves rather than studying might tend to latch onto the nearest distraction, such as Facebook or that students who use the social networking site might also spend more time on other non-studying activities such as sports or music. 'It may be that if it wasn't for Facebook, some students would still find other ways to avoid studying, and would still get lower grades. But perhaps the lower GPAs could actually be because students are spending too much time socializing online.' As for herself, Karpinski said she doesn't have a Facebook account, although the co-author of the study does. 'For me, I think Facebook is a huge distraction.'"
Did you even read the summary? - Oh, this is /. - never mind.
Dear Slashdot, I have a story to tell. I was on Facebook late last night, having already finished blogging for the day, and I was just decided weather to fap or go to bed. Just as I was about to go to bed, my sister came home. Even though she's only 17, she was obviously drunk, and her friends had to help her up the stairs. I could hear them crashing and giggling, so I went out and stood on the landing and watched. As her friends were dragging my sister up the stairs, her hand caught one of their tops and pulled it down, exposing her breasts! I instantly did the mash, the monster mash. I did the mash, I did the monster mash.
The average person using facebook is the average person commenting on youtube videos: incredibly stupid. Facebook does nothing better than any other method of communication, and you have to use a shitty interface and tolerate facebook users to do..what? If you want asynchronous communication you can use any IM software out there, emails, forums, etc.
Infinite time means everything that can happen, will. You being you is absolutely incidental. You do not exist.
Again, you are using statistics speak when there is no basis for it. You say "probably" but you have no basis for that other than that is your opinion. A correlation only exists if one thing has an effect on the other. If it is a coincidence that only the "cool" "not-so-smart" kids flock to facebook and then claim 'hey the average grade of facebook users is poor', that is not a correlation, that is, using facebook is not effecting grades, its not studying that is the real cause! If you could prove that facebook itself causes significant grade discrepancies then there would be a correlation. A better title of this sensationalist crap article would be: "Study shows kids who goof off get worse grades than those who don't".
Easy. While the good students are trying to win engineering positions based on knowledge and hard work the others are on Facebook creating a social network that will grant them a nice management position in the future. They couldn't care less about their grades.