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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.'"
With the proliferation of online degrees and most people moving their social interaction to social networking sites, college may soon be an extension of Facebook. 50 years from now Facebook University may be the most prestigious college in the United States. I don't know if I'm being funny or insightful, but all of a sudden I feel depressed.
Well, first off, it's Ohio State.
:).
Second, this sounds like the kind of "study" done for a sociology class. Plenty of inflated grades among people who take Soc 101.
Third, it was a survey. It'd be interesting to see if there's a correlation between not using Facebook and lying about your GPA
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Even people without social lives per se use social networks online. It's the boring brutes who can't see a hair past their GPA (and are the only ones to actually care about it) that nobody wants to socialise with and thus locking them into a perpetual circle of academic exelence at the cost of inability to operate in real life.
I bet most successful CEO's, politicans, lawyers and other impressively successful types would use social networks a lot if they existed way back when. However, I'm sure most of their accountants and other people with great GPA's wouldn't.
Networking - it's been here forever.
The author didn't say that facebook causes lower grades, they said facebook users have lower grades.
Read the following (from the summary!) closely:
'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.'
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
I managed to kill a LOT of time during my first shot at college in the early 90's playing Super Tecmo Bowl, practicing for the dorms' Street Fighter 2 tournament, and hanging out on BBS's (I had one of three computers in the 150 room dorm). Had the intertubes and Facebook been around at the time I'd have been killing time on there. When it came down to it I was just unprepared for college so after getting kicked out at the end of my second year, I took a year off to work and learn how much minimum wage sucks, then went back for a second attempt with a better perspective and had no problem buckling down.
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Marijuana motivates me to raid the fridge and listen to Pink Floyd.
Squirrel!
Pity the study did not compare the grades of students who used other social network sites. It might possibly be that Facebook attracted people of lower learning ability than some other sites did. Studying those relationships could be interesting.
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Maybe smart kids are less likely to be social and have friends so they aren't on Facebook?
Why do you necessarily correlate being social and having friends with being on Facebook? I am not on Facebook and don't feel any loss because I see most of my friends in person, for example at salsa and tango classes or at the weekly pub quiz a few of us attend, or at parties. Oh, and I have a PhD in Computer Science, and got the a first class honours undergraduate degree, which is roughly equivalent to a 3.5 - 4.0 GPA in the US system. When I was an undergraduate, I was involved in several student societies (I was on the executive committees for three of them, including being president of two), and didn't use any of the social networks that were popular back then.
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"Most companies these days have a 3.0 minimum before they'll even look at your Resume/CV."
I personally hate this by the way. People who mostly took the advanced and hard classes available, get punished for our GPA, while others who do the bare requirements and then take "Art Appreciation" and "Dance interpritation" and the like get huge GPA boosts...
Seriously, I had several classmates who had C's in all their math and science classes, but take lots of the easy classes to get a 3.2 GPA.
It wouldn't bother me so much if the interviewer would *Look* at what classes we took so that they can say "You took 50% non-major, non-minor related classes to boost your GPA, and did terrible in your actual Major". Most of the time, they just reject based on the GPA and thats it.
I steal signatures. This one used to be yours.
Yes, yes, I'm aware that Ohio State has a lot to offer, sorry if I stepped on your precious buckeye-loving toes.
But, it IS a huge state university with an abundance of liberal arts majors who take fluff courses[1], same as at any big state university (as a graduate of Rutgers, I know the drill). OSU has some very good graduate programs, and some very good undergraduate programs.
[1] Not to say that there aren't liberal arts majors who take hard courses, and get a good education there... but plenty of OSU graduates might as well have gone to a diploma mill.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
If those GPAs are on a four-point scale, the main thing this study tells me is that college is too easy.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
"Who is a non-user?" Facebook has become a very common thing. How big is the sample set of non-users compared to users? Is there any relevant personality trends that run through those who refuse to use Facebook?
My first thought was "what defines a user?" I have a Facebook account, and I spend maybe 30 minutes total per day reading up on what everyone is doing. Does that make me a user by their definition? What about someone who has an account that they only check when they get a notification about something? What about someone who spends four hours every day on those damned "quizzes" that I don't give a rat's ass about?