Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
The more time college students spend on Facebook, the more their grades suffer, according to a new study. Just don’t blame it all on social media, yet.
Reynol Junco, an associate professor of education at Iowa State University, and the author of a new paper published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, explained that freshmen in particular often struggle to balance their use of social networks and their studies, while the issue is less of a problem for upper classmen, especially seniors.
The difference, Junco said, relates to self-regulation. He asked more than 1,600 college students about their Facebook behavior, especially the amount of time they dedicated solely to using the social media website and the amount of time spent on it while multitasking.
Freshmen reported using Facebook for an average of two hours per day, and said that they were also doing schoolwork during half of that time. Sophomores, juniors and seniors also admitted to using the website while studying, but the impact on their grade point average varied.
All types of Facebook usage had a negative impact on the GPAs of freshmen, while only time spent using the social network adversely affected the grades of sophomores and juniors. When it comes to seniors, Junco found no relationship between Facebook and academic performance.
Some aspects of social media use actually benefit GPA
While the obvious conclusion would be that spending less time on social media would improve a student’s GPA, the researcher advises against making that assumption. Some types of Facebook activity, including sharing links and checking in with friends, were positively associated to GPA, he explained, and previous research found a similar relationship between tasks such as creating or RSVPing to an event and overall student engagement.
“It’s not just the way students are accessing the site, but the way in which they’re using the site that has an effect on academic outcomes,” Junco explained Tuesday in a statement. “Students use social media to make friends and create the support network they need. If they’re committed to their social circles, then they’re also committed to their institution, and that’s a major part of academic success.”
He believes that the negative relationship between Facebook use and GPA has little to do with the social media website itself. Instead, it is part of the larger issue of self-regulation, something that all college students have to deal with when they first go off to school. Facebook itself is no different than other type of distraction that students must learn how to deal with.
“Freshmen have all of these adjustment issues,” Junco said. “They come to college and they don’t know what to do, because they don’t have a parent or teacher telling them when to study, what to eat or when to go to bed. They haven’t developed the self-regulation skills that they need.”
Regulation education is the key
While most students will develop that skill throughout their college career, Junco said that college professors and other professionals could provide assistance, helping educate them about responsible social media use rather than asking them to quit using Facebook completely.
He added that parents and high school teachers could also be doing more to educate students how to do develop self-regulation skills in middle school and high school. As for the drop in social media use among seniors, the professor said it is likely due to the fact that they are have already established a strong social support group by that time and are focusing on their future careers.
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