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New Study: Facebook doesn’t lower grades

You might remember this from a few weeks ago:
Facebook Use Linked To Lower Grades In College
“ScienceDaily (Apr. 14, 2009) — College students who use Facebook spend less time studying and have lower grade point averages than students who have not signed up for the social networking website, according to a pilot study at one university.”
I noted that they could only find 4 students in the study who were not on FB on which to draw this conclusion and the authors were critiqued across the blogosphere.
Now a new study has come out:
Facebook Use Not Found To Correlate Negatively With College Grades, New Study Shows
“ScienceDaily (May 8, 2009) — News last month of an unpublished study suggesting that Facebook use is related to lower college academic achievement probably sent more than a few parents reeling. Now a new study may allay those concerns.”
Facebook and academic performance: Reconciling a media sensation with data
Pasek, Josh, more, eian, AND Hargittai, Eszter. “Facebook and academic performance: Reconciling a media sensation with data” First Monday [Online], Volume 14 Number 5 (26 April 2009)
“A recent draft manuscript suggested that Facebook use might be related to lower academic achievement in college and graduate school (Karpinski, 2009). The report quickly became a media sensation and was picked up by hundreds of news outlets in a matter of days. However, the results were based on correlational data in a draft manuscript that had not been published, or even considered for publication. This paper attempts to replicate the results reported in the press release using three data sets: one with a large sample of undergraduate students from the University of Illinois at Chicago, another with a nationally representative cross sectional sample of American 14– to 22–year–olds, as well as a longitudinal panel of American youth aged 14–23. In none of the samples do we find a robust negative relationship between Facebook use and grades. Indeed, if anything, Facebook use is more common among individuals with higher grades. We also examined how changes in academic performance in the nationally representative sample related to Facebook use and found that Facebook users were no different from non–users.”
Freakonomics blog picked up the thread and noted that:
Correction: Facebook Does Not Make You Stupid
“In defense of her work, the original study’s author, Aryn C. Karpinski, told the Chronicle of Higher Education: “I completely acknowledge the limitations of my research. What I found is so exploratory — people need to chill out.” ”
I wonder if the media will pick up the new research as much as it picked up the first blush of negative research?
It’s a shame when we see newspapers using the research to state:
“First up comes Aryn Karpinski of Ohio State Uni, with the news that Facebook users (at least those in her survey) are lazy, self-deluding thickies.”
“Profs: Facebook, Twitter users are lazy, thick, amoral: Worthless as people, as well as commercially.”
Luckily the researchers cover themselves: “”There may be other factors involved, such as personality traits, that link Facebook use and lower grades,” adds Karpinski, who doesn’t have a Facebook account herself.”
I doubt the damage of poor conclusions from early research will be repaired or communicated anything like the extent of the original soundbites. I guess I’ll just have to chill out! Maybe I’ll just head on to Facebook and learn by doing. Then again it’s so much better (sarcasm on) to study something from afar without ever actually using it. We’re not studying Ancient Rome here!
Stephen

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Posted on: May 8, 2009, 1:33 pm Category: Uncategorized

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