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Facebook Users Get Lower Grades In College
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Apr 14, 2009 08:42 AM
from the but-doodlers-do-fine dept.
from the but-doodlers-do-fine dept.
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.'"
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Science: Concentrate Better By Doodling 94 comments
Kelson writes "The next time you see someone doodling during a meeting, don't criticize them for drifting off. It turns out that doodling is the mind's way of keeping itself just busy enough to avoid checking out entirely and slipping off into a daydream, and doodlers actually remember more of that boring talk. (Judging by my college notes, this probably helped me remember a lot of otherwise-boring lectures.)"
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Look at that another way... (Score:3, Insightful)
People without social lives don't use social networks.
Re:Look at that another way... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Slackers (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Slackers (Score:4, Funny)
Marijuana motivates me to raid the fridge and listen to Pink Floyd.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Unmotivated? You should see a few friends of mine when they're high and no food in the house. If you ever wanted to redecorate, invite them over, give them what they want and then tell them there's a box of oreos hidden somewhere in your apartment.
You just gotta give people the right kind of motivation. I.e. that kind that motivates them.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
People without social lives don't use social networks.
One of the things that surprised me most when I started being contacted by old high school friends was that the most Facebook-active of them were stay-at-home moms, the underemployed, and people who hadn't moved far from our hometown. These are the people who want you to play some game app with them, send cocktails/skateboards, "20 questions," "five favorite 'X's," and to sign up for causes. This has provided a valuable lesson to me that has caused me to
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
being online in facebook and writing messages to a lot of friends, planning your week and inviting people to join you at certain activities is the social usage of facebook.
however surfing around in the facebook web, looking at photos, and playing games in facebook is the non-social usage of facebook.
So, even if people use facebook, it really depends what they spend their time with mostly.
I have two friends in mine, who are s
Interesting comment in the linked article (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Interesting comment in the linked article (Score:5, Insightful)
"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?
Parent
College may soon be Facebook U (Score:5, Funny)
Re:College may soon be Facebook U (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know if I'm being funny or insightful, but all of a sudden I feel depressed.
its ok dood. im a certefied facebook pysychiartrist thnx to my online degree w/ a 1.2 gba(hey its still passing!!!LoLZ) and i can help u fell better just post onmy wall for some help and i"ll give u ur first seccion for free since i cant find a job anyways
Parent
Ob: (Score:2)
Don't worry scrote. There are plenty of 'tards out there living really kick ass lives. My first wife was 'tarded. She's a pilot now.
Re: (Score:2)
its ok dood. im a certefied facebook pysychiartrist thnx to my online degree w/ a 1.2 gba(hey its still passing!!!LoLZ) and i can help u fell better just post onmy wall for some help and i"ll give u ur first seccion for free since i cant find a job anyways
No, the really sad part is if we continue to lower the standards with each and every generation that comes along, THIS guy will be able to land a job, mainly because the idiot who hired him was his e-roommate in "college" and boasts a 2.5GPA...
Career path (Score:2)
Sounds like Facebook users have a future career in Marketing :-)
Scott Adams wrote the truth when Dibert was sent to the Marketing dept: "Marketing.....2 drink minimum"
The correlation (Score:2)
It would appear that Karpinski is a heavy facebook user.
In related news... (Score:2)
...a new study has found that people addicted to meth have a harder time holding down a job than people who are not addicted.
C'mon, seriously? We needed a study to prove this? Give me a break.
Usually I can support a study if it would actually make a difference. Given the general level of ignorance and lack of common sense in young adults these days, this will have about as much of an impact as trying to convince them that texting while driving is bad.
Other Distractions (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Yeah well... old news... (Score:2)
There is only so much time. You can prefer to improve your social skills (unfortunately completely ignored in schools, while just as important), or your logic, art or sports skills. :(
If I were 16 again, I'd definitely choose social skills. No reason in being the best programmer in the known universe, when your can't even procreate.
Even worse, when you are not the best one in the known universe. ^^
What's the average? (Score:2)
I actually R'dTFA to check, and it doesn't seem to mention what the average grades are for the total population.
Saying "Facebook users get 3.0-3.5, non-users get 3.5-4.0" means something very different if the average is 3.25, versus if the average of all users is 3.75. Are facebooker users dumber than your average student, or are the few users who don't have a facebook account smarter than the average student?
A comparison could be illuminating (Score:5, Interesting)
same as (Score:2)
students who play video games, students who watch too much tv, students who eat junkfood, students who do drugs, students who
stay up too late, students who listen to heavy metal...
i question not the correlation between facebook and GPA, but the correlation between GPA and overall intelligence.
Those are average GPAs? (Score:5, Insightful)
If those GPAs are on a four-point scale, the main thing this study tells me is that college is too easy.
New world? (Score:4, Interesting)
That brings up a good point. Even though the survey may not be totally scientific, I can definitely see a negative correlation between any outside activity and grades. Anything like Myspace, Facebook, World of Warcraft, or any time-wasting activity robs study time.
However, here's a thought. Current coursework focuses on constant cycles of memorization and testing in most fields. Is that really relevant anymore given the supposed "new world of work" we're about to enter? When I studied chemistry many moons ago, most of the non-lab coursework could only be aced if you studied relatively hard. Has that changed, given the fact that:
So, how much of this is Facebook and how much is just the changing college demographic? Should we change the coursework offered in schools?
To be fair, my opinion is that we should definitely not be forcing everyone through college. Previously, we had a good mix of job opportunities for different education levels, and everything worked out. Only people who were smart enough went to college, and it wasn't an admission ticket for entry-level work like it is today. The crass way to say this is "the world needs ditch-diggers too" but it's true. Having a mix of jobs for a mix of skill levels definitely makes society better.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
(1) learned that writing part of your post in the subject field makes it hard to read and is therefore stupid; and
(2) RTFA. Hell, RTFS, where it's made clear that they've considered that.
Who said correlation implies causation? (Score:5, Informative)
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.'
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
and there's many third variables that need to be studied
So there's a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, etc.......variable that needs to be studied.
Re:Who said correlation implies causation? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
" '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."
Yep, this has been happening since there were college.
I remember during one semester my roomie and I were looking for anything to distract us from studying organic chemistry. That semester, I learned to juggle. We'd study a bit, then someone would reach for the oranges..and we'd start trying to juggle, throwing oranges to each other while doing it.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hell...when it came time to study, even housecleaning seemed a better alternative at times.
So the worst students have the cleanest desks because they procrastinate by cleaning up.
At least that's in a nutshell the story I tell my boss every time he complains about my cluttered desk and 'til someone gives me a better reason not to clean up I'll stick with it.
Re:Maybe whoever did that study (Score:4, Funny)
It's not a mess. It's my stack based chronological filing system.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
It's not true, though. Facebook is not as easy as email, IM, forums, etc. Everyone I know is on Facebook and all I need to remember to get in touch with them is their name.
I don't need lists of emails that are constantly needing updates; I don't need IM contact lists that are usually out of date as well; I don't need memberships at several forums and to remember who belongs to each.. just type a few letters of their name on Facebook and there they are. Persists through email changes, phone number changes, a
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
For me, it's not about a "trendy service that I reject because I'm trendily un-trendy". A stupid idea is stupid whether it's trendy or not, and a good idea is good whether it's trendy or not. And in my opinion, sites that ONLY do social networking are stupid. (I also think Twitter - the great trend of the past month - is stupid.) Slashdot's friends/foes system is an aweso
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And in my opinion, sites that ONLY do social networking are stupid.
Maybe you just have no social life ;-)
Or, much more likely, maybe you don't organise yours the way I organise mine. Probably the same thing was said when telephones meant people stopped writing paper invitations.
I don't use Facebook very often -- I'll log in at most once a week to see if anything catches my eye. Most useful is the "Events" part. A friend living 200 miles away invited me to her housewarming party last week. Without Facebook, I'd have just gone on the train. On the Facebook event page, I coul
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not that hard, 1 A and 1 B is a 3.5 right there. Heck an A and a C is a 3.0. Most companies these days have a 3.0 minimum before they'll even look at your Resume/CV.
Maybe smart kids are less likely to be social and have friends so they aren't on Facebook? Why isn't the causation/correlation defined that way?
Re:When everyone is special, no one is special (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:When everyone is special, no one is special (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There's nothing sadder when the kids you fuckin tutored get 'honors' while you have no such distinction, because you challenged yourself every step of the way.
There should be weight given to grades based on the level of the courses.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Any asshole can get a 3.5 GPA nowadays, it is built into people choosing some schools over others
Or having old exams/hws/etc and professors too lazy to change anything or write good exams. One guy quipped that he's seen the class avg. go up 20 points since the iphone was invented. The guys with high GPAs worry me more than the ones without 'cause at least the low ones pretty much guarantee that the guy learned something more than how to memorize/copy a solution.
Re:When everyone is special, no one is special (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In my experience, any 100 or 200 level class was easy, unless it was picked to be a "weeder" class (like organic chem). Then it was still easy, but required some effort.
I found that soc 101 & 102 were a joke, but maybe it's because writing is easy for me. Maybe those classes just played to my strengths.
Once I hit the 300s and 400s, classes were a bit harder (especially clas
Re:When everyone is special, no one is special (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
This is the same problem with studies that "show" that high-school/college graduates make more than dropouts. There are plenty of race-discrimination "studies" with the same problem.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Dude... this is slashdot. Having a three-digit Facebook userID is like having 666 tattooed on your forehead, except less cool among the Satanist and counterculturalists.
I'm no real oldtimer (chips & dips was before my time), but sheesh... don't brag about a three-digit Facebook ID on slashdot lest ye wake the low UID slashdot dragons.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You say that I have no basis, but that's just, like, your opinion, man. Where's your research?!
This is a fucking Internet message board, not a scholarly journal. It is perfectly appropriate for me to propose the possibility of a correlation between these various factors. Further, any reasonable person would come to the correct conclusion that by "probably"