Is Facebook Affecting Your GPA?

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Do you find you ever find yourself distracted by Facebook while you should be doing your school work? How many hours do you think you end up spending on Facebook a day? 30 minutes? 2 hours? Afraid to know? Many people, especially college students, use Facebook as a way to communicate with friends and keep others updated about their lives. However, Facebook is doing a lot more than helping us keep in touch with an old friend.

According to Time Magazine, the average college student spends 106 minutes on Facebook a day! However, something more disturbing is what that time correlates with.  A recent study has found that for every additional 1.5 hours spent above the average 106 minutes on the site, your GPA will drop .12 points.  One theory the study suggests is that Facebook distracts us from the school work that we have to do, leading to poorer grades.  However, some scientists disagree with the explanation. For example, Charlie Osburn argues that students who use Facebook more frequently might already be part of a lower GPA group.

Although there is a negative relationship between GPA and extensive use of Facebook, the study does not prove that one causes the other.  This is a perfect example of the fact that correlation does not always equal causation.  I have come up with my own theory after reading the study thoroughly.  I believe that if we weren’t using Facebook to distract us from our school work, we would be using something else to distract us.  Therefore, I think it is us using Facebook as a distraction, not so much as Facebook distracting us.

The more I thought about this study, the more I realized there could be a third variable: Facebook’s affect on our intelligence. Could it be that the more we use Facebook, the less intelligence we become; hence, our GPA decreases?  The results surprised me.  According to a study conducted by Dr. Tracy Alloway, a psychologist from the University of Stirling in Scotland, Facebook use actually increases intelligence.  Tracy has spent a immense amount of time throughout her scientific career studying the working memory.  She explains that the working memory allows people to retain and use information, which is “a far more significant measure of the well-being and intelligence of humanity than, say, IQ”.  Her study found that Facebook, unlike many other social media sites, enhances the working memory.  This is due to the fact that Facebook users have to keep up with all of the friends they have on the site.

So, it can be concluded that Facebook isn’t all that bad for us.  Although it may lower our GPA for unknown reasons, it will increase our intelligence! I am excited to follow up on this in the future to see if more studies have been conducted, but for now, I’ll stick with my own theory of why Facebook lowers GPA.

Kristen Robertson

Resources:

http://www.cnet.com/news/psychologist-facebook-makes-you-smarter-twitter-makes-you-dumber/

http://tracyalloway.com/journal-articles/

http://techland.time.com/2011/12/07/number-of-the-day-0-12/

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/facebook-use-lowers-gpa-over-prolonged-sessions/13577

7 thoughts on “Is Facebook Affecting Your GPA?

  1. Brittney Christina Falcon

    I certainly see your point, but I find myself agreeing most with the point of Charlie Osburn, people who spend that much time on Facebook probably already have low GPA’s. I say that based on personal experience in which I have noticed people who want better GPA’s spend time working at it, not on social media, which will not help them get better grades. In addition research may support that thought, an article linked below in Psychology Today, deems Facebook to be a “whole new world of waisting time.” It is this time waisting part of peoples lives that may keep them from getting good GPA’s.
    http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dont-delay/200804/facebook-whole-new-world-wasting-time

  2. Brittney Christina Falcon

    I certainly see your point, but I find myself agreeing most with the point of Charlie Osburn, people who spend that much time on Facebook probably already have low GPA’s. I say that based on personal experience in which I have noticed people who want better GPA’s spend time working at it, not on social media, which will not help them get better grades. In addition research may support that thought, an article linked below in Psychology Today, deems Facebook to be a “whole new world of waisting time.” It is this time waisting part of peoples lives that may keep them from getting good GPA’s.

  3. Sydni Noelle Jean

    I think Facebook is a distraction to us doing homework, but what about Twitter, Instagram, or Vine as well? I don’t think it is only Facebook, but also other social media websites. Also, another factor in this could be that people who alredy have low GPA’s could just give up and stay on facebook. It could be a psychological thing.

  4. Alyssa Marie Gregory

    My mom would always complain that I’m on social media wayyyyy to much and that it would affect my academic performance. Well she was right on one of those two things. Was I on it easy to much? Yes. Did it ever affect my grades?No. Thinking back to elementary school and middle school days to where i didn’t have social media my grades were actually very low. When I entered high school and started to get on social media is when my grades were actually good (hence I got accepted into University Park.) With that being said, I would say Facebook may actually have a positive affect on our GPA and grades. When you think about it while on these sites you’re actually doing some academic work such as reading and writing. If you don’t use slang , you’r actually getting al lot of English practice. Reading post, writing posts, leaving comments , ect. You’re also stimulating your brain by doing this. On social media you can follow all different types of people of the world, this way by viewing their posts , photos, and life you could get a lesson on different cultures. In the end , I think Facebook and other social media outlets can actually help ones GPA and overall academic success. Heres a link on the positives of Facebook
    http://scientificera.com/internet/50-internet/352-top-advantages-of-facebook.html

  5. Gabrielle Gordin

    As an avid Facebook user, I completely agree that it’s super distracting. I’m an undecided major, but I might as well be majoring in procrastination, and I would say most of that reason is due to social media. Applications such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are preventing students everyday from concentrating on their school work and focusing on their studies. An article on the Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/19/5-reasons-to-stop-checking-facebook-at-work_n_2717437.html) states that scientists are claiming that Facebook can turn into an addiction, and that people who use it more frequently are usually less content with their lives. So, while Facebook may not be as harmful to our GPAs as we would think, it could be more likely to affect our general wellbeing.

  6. Elizabeth Ann Dixon

    I agree that Facebook is a huge distraction. Whenever I’m on my laptop to do schoolwork I find myself logging onto Facebook. Sometimes, I mean to type in “angel.psu.edu” and I catch myself typing in Facebook because I guess it has become a habit. Also, once I’m done searching Facebook, I turn over to my phone and check Instagram and twitter. Therefore, I basically find anything to distract me from doing my work. So I don’t think it’s only Facebook that’s the distraction, I believe all sorts of social media and electronics take away from being concentrated on our work which in turn means less work being done and having our grades suffer from that.

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