Is Facebook being unnessarily critisized for low grades.
A survey conducted at Ohio State University on 219 students has thrown up very interesting results. It was observed that students who are heavily in to Facebook devote lesser time on their textbooks compared to ones who are not at all using Facebook. And obviously these students who devote lesser time on textbooks were found to be getting lower grades. Social networking sites lure students in to their web and students tend to come back to them again and again. There have been many instances where educational institutions have blocked social media sites during examinations. The move though not appreciated in the beginning helped students to get better grades in the examinations.The Ohio State University example doesn’t draw conclusions whether it was Facebook which resulted in students getting lower grades or the low graders embraced social media sites more extensively. Ohio State doctoral student Aryn Karpinski, who conducted the research with graduate student Adam Duberstein, observed
“It cannot be stated (that) Facebook use causes a student to study less” or get lower grades, she says. “I’m just saying that they’re related somehow, and we need to look into it further.” Of the 68% of students who said they used Facebook, 65% accessed the site daily or multiple times daily.
Facebook users themselves believe that its usage doesn’t impact their studying hours and they were not cutting down onto their regular studying hours. The results and the observation doesn’t conclusively prove that exposure to social media sites have impacted their academic performance.
The student fraternity should take a leaf from this study and judiciously limit their exposure to social media sites.If at all they intend to use it too often they my advice is to use it constructively by forming study groups where your academic problems and questions can be posted to elicit response.
May also like to read: Renunciating Facebook – temporarily.
