Study: Facebook may help student GPA
College students who use Facebook to collect and share information are more likely to have higher GPAs than those who use the site for socializing, according to a recent study conducted by professors at Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania.
The study, released September 2011, examined use of Facebook by nearly 2,000 participating college students attending public four-year universities. Its stated purpose was to determine the relationship between the regularity of Facebook use, types of activities participated in on the site, time spent studying for classes and the overall GPA of participants taken straight from college registrars.
Researchers found that use of the site positively impacted student GPAs when students shared links with friends and gathered information, mimicking common educational behaviors. Adversely, engaging in socializing, chatting or updating statuses negatively impacted both student GPA and time devoted to studying.
Reynol Junco, the researcher behind the study and a professor at Lock Haven University, said, “While further study is necessary, these results do help educators understand which Facebook activities could prove problematic and which were beneficial — when to target interventions around comparable online and offline behaviors like excessive socializing, and the possibilities of using Facebook to enhance student learning and engagement.”
Lock Haven researchers observed a negative relationship between the amount of time students spent on Facebook and GPA, which means the more time spent on Facebook, the lower the GPA.
Students who spent 279 minutes more than the average few minutes spent on Facebook per day had GPAs .37 points below average, according to the study, and though it’s not a large number, it is evidence that excessive amounts of time spent on the site are detrimental to student academic performance.
USU students, like most users, frequently participate in Facebook activities, such as game playing, sharing and socializing, but some students, such as freshman Brittany Benson, say only rarely is the site used for the educational purposes outlined in the study.
“That study could be right if the only thing that happened on Facebook was information sharing and gathering, which almost never happens,” Benson said.
Benson said she spends most of her time on Facebook chatting with friends, commenting on pictures or playing games, but it doesn’t hurt her schoolwork.
“Facebook itself does not get in the way of my academics,” she said, “but procrastination in the form of Internet surfing, Facebook and gaming sites sometimes distracts me.”
Good use of time is something college students struggle with, Benson said, but she believes good time management skills can prevent the overuse of social media sites like Facebook.
“Generally, college students probably do have a hard time managing the amount of time that they put into Facebook,” she said, “but I believe that most of us can prioritize enough to decrease our wasted time.”
For some students time management isn’t an issue at all.
Christian Cannell, a senior double majoring in biochemistry and economics, said, “I spend most of my Facebook time socializing, but I don’t get on Facebook enough for it to be a problem. I get on Facebook maybe four times a week, on average, not usually more than half an hour.”
Tyler Esplin, a sophomore English major, said he finds the results of the study interesting, but the site does not interfere with his academics.
“I don’t really think it gets in the way too badly,” Esplin said. “It’s important to be able to shut off the social part of your brain when you need to and really buckle down and get school done, and I think, for the most part, I’ve gotten the hang of it.”
Esplin said he uses the site to share interesting information, which Junco’s study states may have a positive impact on overall student GPA. He added that many Facebook users tend to share irrelevant or useless information, and he said he tries to avoid that when he’s online.
“I would say most of my time on Facebook is spent posting interesting things that I’ve found elsewhere online,” Esplin said. “I try not to let it be an outlet where I stream the useless garbage that I’m doing.”
He said, “I like to think of the movie ‘Easy A’ as an example, where one of the kids posts, ‘Having an OK day, and bought a Coke Zero at the gas station. Raise the roof.’ I at least try to keep it at a semi-intellectual, artistic, emotional or interesting level.”
Junco said while the results of the study are not entirely conclusive and further research is needed, educators can use Facebook as a tool to help students do better in school and also educate themselves more thoroughly.
The site has individual features that if used appropriately, Junco states, can increase student learning growth. A correlation exists between communication and positive academic performance, he added, and one specific example of something university faculty members could do to encourage the site’s educational uses is begin course-related discussions via self-administered Facebook groups.
Thousands of websites have incorporated the use of buttons and tabs allowing visitors to share what they read at the click of a button. By encouraging that type of behavior on Facebook, Junco states, students can more fully experience the educational benefits of the site.
– ariwrees@aggiemail.usu.edu