Facebook users be wary. In a survey conducted on 219 Ohio State students, an OSU doctoral student says there is a correlation between Facebook use and lower grades.
But “the idea of this study was so exploratory and inconclusive and should be further researched,” said Aryn Karpinski, co-author of the study, during a phone interview. Karpinski is a doctoral student in the school of educational policy and leadership.
The study found that students who use Facebook have grade point averages between 3.0 to 3.5, while non-users have GPAs between 3.5 to 4.0.
In addition, students who use Facebook only study one to five hours per week, while non-users study 11 to 15 hours per week.
“I had the idea back when I was in my master’s program in Virginia because I noticed just how popular Facebook was getting in 2004 to 2006,” Karpinski said.
Facebook, which turned five years old in February, recently announced that it has accumulated more than 200 million users.
And last month, Nielsen Online reported that Facebook and other social networking sites had even championed e-mail as the leading online communication tool. Used by two-thirds of all worldwide online users, social networks and blogs have become the fourth most popular online products.
Although the study was a small, probing experiment, it is one of the first to find any correlation between college students’ use of Facebook and how well they perform academically.
In order to survey students, Karpinski said she e-mailed professors and asked them if she could pass out the survey in class. The survey was six pages long and asked a series of open-ended questions.
She said she realizes the sample size was small, but the results were statistically significant.
“I just knew from the research that I gathered that this study should be further looked into,” she said.
Of the 219 students interviewed, 102 were undergraduate students and 117 were graduate students. The study found that 148 of the students had a Facebook account.
According to the study, 85 percent of undergraduate students have Facebook accounts while only 52 percent of graduate students have accounts.
It was also found that working students spend less time on Facebook than those who do not work. Yet students involved in extracurricular activities at school were more likely to use the social networking site.
Karpinski said that students in science, technology, engineering and math were more likely to use Facebook because their work entails the use of the Internet more so than other majors, such as humanities and social science majors.
But the study found that 79 percent of Facebook users do not think that their time spent on the site interferes with their schoolwork. Users said that they did not spend enough time on Facebook to notice any significant impact on their studies. The study emphasized that academics are a priority for students.
What the study finds is that there may be a relationship between Facebook and lower GPAs, but not that it directly causes it. Because of the smaller sample size, critics have quickly jumped in to rule out the correlation.
Don Tapscott from the University of Toronto has conducted a $4 million research project involving more than 11,000 people with ages ranging from 11 to 31 years old, which he calls the “The Net Generation.”
His research shows that the Net Generation’s ability to network and access the world of information puts them in the forefront to be the smartest people. It directly contradicts with the survey results Karpinski has yielded. Tapscott was not immediately available for comment.
Brennon Slattery of pcworld.com slammed the findings of the survey and called the study “dubious.”
“To generate any broad-ranging claim based on such a small collection of data is rash,” he said on the Web site.
Karpinski said she has nothing against Facebook.
“If I knew I was going to be pushed into the media like I have been, I would never have agreed to my first interview,” Karpinski said. “They skewed and misrepresented my data.”
She said that she just wants to stimulate dialogue with professors, faculty and staff about the issue.
“I think Facebook is a great social networking site and I seriously believe professors might benefit from it and should use it as a tool for class,” she said.
Karpinski herself was not quick to jump on the Facebook bandwagon as a college student.
“My friends have badgered me for so long about getting one, but I like to keep it real,” she said.
Karpinski will present her research on April 16 in San Diego at the American Education Research Association annual meeting.
She does not plan on publishing her work.
Mariam Khan can be reached at [email protected].
