Facebook Users Get Lower Grades In College 284
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.'"
Look at that another way... (Score:3, Insightful)
People without social lives don't use social networks.
Re:Maybe whoever did that study (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.
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.
Because grades do not reflect social IQ? (Score:1, Insightful)
You do not get graded for social skills but for your ability to reproduce knowledge.
My experience as a parent (Score:2, Insightful)
'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.'
That fits my experience as a parent exactly. I've found that if you deny your children access to one distraction, they will just find another.
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.
Re:Who said correlation implies causation? (Score:4, Insightful)
More details (Score:2, Insightful)
Many variables are not considered directly in the analysis (at least in the brief writeup). For example, the sample has more grad students than undergrads, and grad students were found to be less likely to use Facebook. But grad students are selected from academic high(er) achievers, and graduate courses are generally graded with a higher curve than undergrad courses. That alone could explain the correlation. So why do less grad students use Facebook? Perhaps age plays a role (since not so long ago, Facebook was targeted only at undergrads). Similar arguments could be made regarding STEM students, who are more likely to use Facebook, but (I suspect) are also more likely to have lower undergrad GPAs. It is very difficult to compare GPAs across disciplines without controlling for the mean GPA.
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.
Re:Look at that another way... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:When everyone is special, no one is special (Score:2, Insightful)
I have a PhD in Computer Science
I'm going to make a reasonable guess that you took >= 5 years for the PhD. (If you finished in less, please don't be insulted.) This puts you graduating at Spring 2004 or Winter 2003 at the latest.
When I was an undergraduate, I [...] didn't use any of the social networks that were popular back then.
What popular social networks are you talking about? It certainly wasn't facebook [wikipedia.org].
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.
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.
Re:When everyone is special, no one is special (Score:1, Insightful)
If your teacher gives you a bad grade because of your opinion in a non-facts based class, even if you demonstrate a working knowledge of what's going on and why you came to your opinion, then your teacher is not doing his or her job.
With bonus points I had over a 100 average for SOC 101. Why? Because even if I disagreed with the teacher I took the time to know what I was talking about. We weren't opposites on the political scale but we were fairly distant. She never dinged me for disagreeing.
My soon-to-be-wife (May 1st!) is an English teacher and teaches World Lit, and when it comes to the subjective opinion on the stories she grades students based on how much they demonstrate a knowledge of the story. As long as it's not something off the wall ("Achilles and Leonidas were gay lovers and involved in a black market sex toy trade.") then the student is doing okay.
Sounds like you just had shitty teachers.
Re:Maybe whoever did that study (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 awesome addition to this site - but none of us are on this site for the social networking aspect of it; we're all here because we want "news for nerds" and any social networking that happens is a bonus.
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?
Re:Look at that another way... (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 socially more inactive - one of them is using facebook almost daily and playing games, the other friend is mostly signing in every third day and thats it.
Re:When everyone is special, no one is special (Score:1, Insightful)
Of course we also haven't reached the point where Universities are simply money-machines that see their primary function as squeezing every last penny out of the poor saps, sorry, students, which is probably why they're not padding their courses out to 5+ years. Yet.
Re:Maybe whoever did that study (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:When everyone is special, no one is special (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:Look at that another way... (Score:1, Insightful)
This is why the average millionares GPA is only a 2.92. You don't need to be smart to be rich.
Put another way, being too smart prevents you from being rich!
Re:When everyone is special, no one is special (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.