14 DAY TRIAL // While the connection between using social media and having low grades in school or college has not yet been directly made, researchers conducting a new survey on social media could not help but notice that students who spent most spare time on Facebook tended to have the lowest grades of all those who were studied. The scientists in charge of the research underlined the fact that being an active part of the social media movement did not necessarily mean that these students studied less, or had an intellect below average. It simply means that these correlations need to be explored more thoroughly.
Ohio State University education researcher Aryn Karpinski told LiveScience that students in the survey who were very active on Facebook tended to have a GPA of around 3.0 to 3.5, as opposed to the teens who reported little to no social media activity. Their GPA levels were in the 3.5 to 4.0 category. Karpinski made it clear that such correlations did not imply causality, in that there might very well be other factors at stake there that drove these students to have lower grades.
The expert also noticed that Facebook users spent between 1 and 5 hours each week studying, or otherwise getting ready for school, whereas non-users took a significantly higher interest in their education, studying between 11 and 15 hours per week, and sometimes even more. Karpinski also said that these results did not necessarily mean that social media users were less interested in school. These children could spend more time on non-learning, extra-curricular activities, such as making music, or working, and not necessarily on Facebook.
In addition, the amount of time spent on learning and reading is also dependent on a student's personality. There are those teens who study all day long just for the sake of it, or who are really interested in the objects they are taught in schools and colleges. On the other hand, others simply accomplish the minimum amount of requirements to remain in school, while devoting their time to their hobbies, or simply doing things that have no connection to their education.
Karpinski's research will be presented on April 16th, at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association, and will contain details about how students reacted when seeing the questions about their social media behavior. “They're very territorial about their Facebook,” the researcher shared, emphasizing the fact that she tried not to insert any bias, either positive or negative, into the questionnaires.