Facebook Bad For Study Habits?

On the back of the report out two weeks ago claiming that employees who access the Internet during work hours are more productive, comes a university study out of the US stating that students who access the social networking site Facebook get lower grades than those who don’t.

Although there were only 219 students involved in the Ohio State University study, it is interesting to note what kind of distraction and impact Facebook and other, similar networks have on our everyday lives.

One of the co-author’s of the study, Aryn Karpinski, is the first to admit that there could be other reasons for Facebook-ingrained students not doing as well – maybe they have personalities that are easily distracted – but then again, maybe they are just addicted to the site.

What the study didn’t show – and would take a lot more in-depth and longer study to find out – was comparing a set of student’s grades for a year by asking them to not use Facebook, and then give them access to the site for another year, and then comparing their grades with the previous year.

What is interesting from a purely technological point of view is this: while technology has advanced education and other facets of our society, is its downside one whereby we spend too much ‘wasted time’ interacting with technology.

What do you think?