According to a new study by doctoral candidate Aryn Karpinski of Ohio State University and her co-author Adam Duberstein of Ohio Dominican University, college students who use Facebook, the 200-million-member social network, have one common denominator: they have significantly lower grade point averages (GPA) than those who do not.
The study found that the GPAs of Facebook users typically ranged a full grade lower than those of nonusers — 3.0 to 3.5 for users versus 3.5 to 4.0 for their non-networking peers.
Karpinski says she isn't surprised by her findings, but notes that the study does not suggest Facebook directly causes lower grades, merely that there's some relationship between the two factors. "Maybe Facebook users are just prone to distraction. Maybe they are just procrastinators," Karpinski told.
In February, Oxford University neuroscientist Susan Greenfield cautioned Britain's House of Lords that social networks like Facebook and Bebo were "infantilizing the brain into the state of small children," by shortening attention span and providing constant instant gratification.
New evidence by Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, a researcher at USC, shows the digital torrent of information from networking sites could have long-term damaging effects on the emotional development of young people's brains. Sites like Facebook and Twitter may blunt people's sense of morality and users could become "indifferent to human suffering" because they never get time to reflect and fully experience emotions about other people's feelings.
Some experts dismiss all studies of Internet use as flawed, since there is no reasonable way to control for the myriad variables that may affect such research.
Facebook also issued a statement and pointed to another study showing that personal Internet use at work can help focus workers' concentration and increase productivity.
Parents and employers are confused.
Please. LOL I used to worry about my son watching TV when he was younger. I worried about his use of video games too. Today, I don't worry about the time he spends on Facebook. My son graduated from a good school - the valedictorian. Today, he is in all honors classes at his equally good high school. His national test scores are above the average.
ReplyDeleteLet's face it people - social networking is here to stay, and the sooner we accept that fact - the better we all will be. Change is hard, but change is necessary. No since fighting it.
Research points out that social networking is good for workers but bad for students. Who am I to disagree science? I am afraid your son's story will take its place in the list of unexplained mysteries.
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