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Research: Student Grades Not Affected By Social Networking

The study “Social Networking Usage and Grades Among College Students” (PDF) finds that students who heavily engage in social networking do just as well academically as students who are less interested in keeping in touch with the medium.

The study indicates that social media is being integrated with rather than interfering with students’ academic lives. College students have grown up with social networks, and the study shows they are now simply part of how students interact with each other with no apparent impact on grades. – UNH adjunct professor Chuck Martin

It seems that most of the time that is used for social networks comes from TV, idle surfing, and gaming. This way the time spent on social networking sites could be said to be a “higher quality” activity. The time for studying and other important thing stays the same.

The research shows that there is no correlation between the amount of time students spend using social media and their grades. Grades followed similar distributions for all colleges.

63% of heavy users received high grades, compared to 65% of light users. 37% of heavy users of social media received what were defined as lower grades and 35% of light users fell into same category.

The study showed that Facebook and YouTube are the most popular social media sites, with 96% of students saying they use Facebook and 84% saying they use YouTube. 20% said they use blogs, 14% use Twitter, 12% use MySpace and 10% use LinkedIn.

89% of students use social networks for social reasons and 79% use them for entertainment. 26% of students use social media for educational reasons and 16% for professional reasons.
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Image credit Mary Gober