by Jared Davis
The social networking site Facebook continues to grow in popularity as it currently boasts close to 4 million members, the majority of which are college students. Approximately 85% of students at Facebook-friendly colleges have an account with the site. According to the co-founder of Facebook, Chris Hughes, 60% of members log in on a daily basis, 83% on a weekly basis, and 93% log in during the course of a month. These numbers clearly demonstrate the degree to which Facebook has penetrated the daily lives and routines of today’s college students. One must wonder what effects, either positive or negative, social networking sites such as Facebook have on the academic performance of college students.
According to a study conducted by Ohio State University, Facebook users differed noticably from non-users in terms of GPA as well as in hours devoted to studying. The results of the study showed that students who used Facebook typically had GPA’s between 3.0 and 3.5 while non-users were typically in the 3.5 to 4.0 range. In addition, Facebook users reported studying on average for about 1 to 5 hours per week while non-users devoted between 11 to 15 hours. According to these numbers, Facebook could be considered as a hindrance to academic advancement. However, these are only the results of a single study and are not enough to conclusively determine whether this is in fact the case. In addition, there are those who would argue that social networking provides more positives than it does negatives.
A study conducted at the University of Southern California and the University of California at Berkeley entitled The Digital Youth Project showed that social networking is actually providing young minds with skills which will be useful in our increasingly technological society. According to Karen Goldberg Goff of The Washington Times, the study “found that the digital world is creating new opportunities for young people to grapple with social norms, explore interests, develop technical skills and work on new forms of self- expression.” If this is in fact the case, Facebook users could perhaps be considered as having an advantage over non-users at least in terms of keeping up with the times and technology.
It's difficult to say whether social networking sites such as Facebook have more of a positive or negative effect on the overall shaping of college students. However, it is rather safe to say that sites such as Facebook are not going anywhere anytime soon.
5 comments:
(Leigha)
-I appreciate very much that you've given credit to your sources -- and that you've named them.
-The very last sentence seems tangential or unrelated to the issue discussed in the article.
(Zach)
-Very good idea for a blog seeing as it relates to almost all college students.
-I do not believe that facebook has a dramatic effect on students grades, whether good or bad.
(Anne)
-I thought you summarized both the negative and positive thoughts on facebook clearly.
-I looked up statistics of the amount of time the average user spends on Facebook for my article. The avg. person spends 55 minutes according to Facebook which is time that can be spent on school work.
(Jane)
- The article was very good and had a lot of truth to it.
- Could have used more than one study in the article.
(Sam)
- I personally enjoyed reading this blog because Facebook has become a great impact on many college students lives, more so then I think we know. The statistics was a great factual addition to the blog, it lets people become more aware of the actual usage that takes place on just this one social networking site alone.
- I think adding the study of a specific college was a really good technique, however I think you could have given more details on Karen Goldberg Goff's positive feelings about Facebook, you mentioned how she feels it gives more oppurtunies to the youth, but maybe some examples of how the website does that. Overall this was a really good topic.
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