Study: Facebook users get worse grades

A new study released by Ohio State University shows that college students who use Facebook spend less time studying and have lower grades than students who don’t use the popular social networking site. But don’t count on the Facebook users admitting the problem. The university report noted that 79% of them said that using the social networking site was not interfering with their studies. “We can’t say that use of Facebook leads to lower grades and less studying — but we did find a relationship there,” said Aryn Karpinski, co-author of the study and a doctoral student in education at Ohio State University. “There’s a disconnect between students’ claim that Facebook use doesn’t impact their studies, and our finding showing they had lower grades and spent less time studying.”

The university reported that science, technology, engineering, math and business majors were more likely to use Facebook than students who are studying social sciences and the humanities. The survey of 219 Ohio State students only asked about Facebook and did not focus on other social networking sites, like Myspace or Twitter. Facebook, which just turned five years old in February, had nearly double the number of global users last December as rival and longtime market leader Myspace.com Inc. Just last week, Facebook itself reported that it was hitting a major milestone: It had captured its 200 millionth user. The Ohio State University study found that 85% of undergraduates use Facebook, while 52% of graduate students had accounts. It also found that Facebook users, who generally studied between one and five hours per week, had GPAs between 3.0 and 3.5, but nonusers, who studied 11 to 15 hours per week, had GPAs between 3.5 and 4.0.

Source: Computer World