Article on Facebook use lowering exam results

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1309612/Using-Facebook-lower-exam-results-20.html

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Using Facebook 'can lower exam results by up to 20%'

By Nic Fleming

 

Three quarters of the Facebook users didn't think the site affected their academic performance

It is what parents of teenagers who 'revise' in front of the computer have long feared.
Students who use Facebook while they study get significantly lower grades than those who do not, according to psychologists.
A study has found that the exam results of those who used the social networking site while working, even if it was on in the background, were 20 per cent lower than non-users.
Researchers say the findings undermine the theory that young people's brains are better at multitasking on digital gadgets.
Study author Professor Paul Kirschner said: 'The problem is that most people have Facebook or other social networking sites, their emails and maybe instant messaging constantly running in the background while they are carrying out other tasks.
'Our study, and other previous work, suggests that while people may think constant task-switching allows them to get more done in less time, the reality is it extends the amount of time needed to carry out tasks and leads to more mistakes.'
His team studied 219 students aged between 19 and 54 at an American university.
The Facebook users among them had a typical grade point average - a score from zero up to four - of 3.06. Non-users had an average GPA of 3.82.

 

Those who did not use the site also said they devoted more time to studying, spending an average of 88 per cent longer working outside class.

Three quarters of the Facebook users said they didn't believe spending time on the site affected their academic performance.

More privacy fears over 'stalker button'

Facebook faces fresh criticism from privacy campaigners after launching a 'stalker button' which lets users track a potential victim's every move.
The 'subscribe to friend' feature collects everything a Facebook user does, such as sharing photographs and comments and puts it on a list that is constantly updated.
Some users' locations will also be displayed throughout the day.
Potential stalkers will have to be 'Facebook friends' with their intended target to see the list.
But users will not be told who is monitoring them.
Big Brother Watch said: 'This new "stalker button" enables burglars and ex-partners to track people in real life more easily.'
Facebook said the feature was being tested on a 'small percentage of users'.

But most of the remaining quarter admitted it had a harmful effect, with many saying it made them put off their work.
Professor Kirschner said that he expected to see similar results in younger pupils.
He also said he was not 'demonising' Facebook and pointed to the distracting nature of all social networking.
'We should resist the fashionable views of educational gurus that children can multi-task, and that we should adapt our education systems accordingly to keep up with the times,' he said.
The study by the psychologist from the Open University in the Netherlands will be published in the journal Computers in Human Behaviour.
It will compound fears over the superficial approach that experts say is encouraged by an increasingly distracting online world that promotes multi-tasking.
In the influential book The Shallows, Nicholas Carr argues the internet has given rise to 'cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking and superficial learning'.