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Students Who Use Facebook Get Lower Grades, Study Shows
Filed under: In The News, Research Reveals: Teens
Updating your status while studying could lower your GPA. Credit: meow meow meow meow, Flickr
Newsflash: Facebook may be making us dumber.
London's Daily Mail reports that a team of psychologists studied 219 university students between the ages of 19 and 54, and found that those who use Facebook while they study -- or even have it running in the background -- get grades that are 20 percent lower than those who do not.
"The problem is that most people have Facebook or other social networking sites, their e-mails and maybe instant messaging constantly running in the background while they are carrying out other tasks," Paul Kirschner, study author and professor at the Center for Learning Sciences and Technologies at the Open University of The Netherlands, tells the newspaper.
The students who used Facebook had grade point averages of 3.06, which doesn't seem too bad when the scale goes from 0.0 to 4.0. However, those who turned off the social media network when it came time to hit the books had a typical GPA of 3.82. In addition, non-users also said they studied more often -- spending an average of 88 percent more time working outside of class.
Some students are in denial about the findings. Three-quarters of those surveyed said they don't believe Facebook had any effect on their performance.
Kirschner is quick to point out that he isn't trying to demonize any one social media network, but that the study does suggest that multi-tasking online isn't an effective study strategy.
"Our study, and other previous work, suggests that while people may think constant task-switching allows them to get more done in less time, the reality is it extends the amount of time needed to carry out tasks and leads to more mistakes," he tells the Daily Mail.
Kirschner also tells the newspaper he doesn't think this trend is limited to college students. He says he would expect similar results among younger pupils, as well.
Related: Could Facebook Keep Your Kid Out of College?
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ReaderComments (Page 2 of 2)
9-09-2010 @ 7:03PM
niki said...uhm no. there has already been a study that proved Facebook doesn't have any negative effect on IQ, and surely not grades. YouTube, however, was found to lower IQ points.
When are you people going to stop trying to paint social networking as this huge, evil thing preying on our children? When used right, websites like Facebook can do a world of good. And furthermore, Facebook was created BY college students, FOR college students... it's been around a lot longer then most people know, since it wasn't used by the mainstream back then. It was created as a network of college students to help them help each other and stay in touch
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12-16-2010 @ 11:26PM
aaa said...thats a HUGE load of crap!! i've been getting A's & b's my whole life, and i've been using facebook for the last 3 years!! i know about 80% of my friends, and the ones i dont know are people from groups the we have common interests in, or family of my friends, and i usually eventually meet them.
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12-16-2010 @ 11:31PM
aaa said...i've been using youtube since i was 12, (almost 6 years) & my i.q has stayed the same-- in fact, raised since then, i use youtube to listen to music, watch news stories, watch interesting videos (look up "rats laugh when you tickle them") and to study for school. no, i dont use perfect grammer or spelling and/or punctuation online, but barely anyone does, of course at school i do what is expected. i take time to make sure my grammer and puntuation are correct, and usually go over what i've written 2-4 times. its not youtube or facebook thats the problem, its the lazy teens and the parents that dont care that the teens are lazy.
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