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Alex Schenk Professor Padgett ENGL 1102 April 2, 2014 Does Social Media affect GPA?

Social media is a relatively new craze in the grand scheme of things, but for me, it feels like it has been around my entire life. Thats because it has been around practically my entire educational career. Myspace was created in 2003, when I was in the third grade. At first I never knew what it was, as I was too young to be online. Though, at around fifth grade it started getting popular among my friends, and in the sixth grade I was the last one without a profile, so I caved and made one. It was fun, you could post pictures of yourself and comment on your friends profiles and what not, I could be with my friends any time of the day. Sixth grade was the first time I had ever made a C in school. Was this just coincidence, were my classes just getting harder? Or was this because I was spending hours of homework time on the computer on my myspace profile? According to studies done recently at colleges and universities across the nation, it is not the reason I got a C. Social media and the Internet are easy to blame, but are not the reason students are getting bad grades. You would think that spending hours on end at a computer on social media while you should be doing homework would affect your grades, right? That was my original thought, but studies show differently. According to Chuck Martin (Author of NY Times Business Bestselling book Mobile Influence) it does not. Martin did a study to determine whether there is a correlation between heavy usage of social media and grades at the

Whittemore School of Business and Economics at the University of New Hampshire on almost 500 female freshman business students. The study showed that high users and low users grades were hardly any different. 63% of the high users made good grades (As or Bs) whereas just 65% of low users made good grades as well (Martin). Which is not that big of a difference, considering two percent of 483 is just ten students. So, as far as I can see, there is not really an affect on GPA from using too social media too much. The study then looked at different platforms; does using facebook differ from youtube, in regards to GPA? The results were the same, very little difference between good and bad grades for both. Now, lets take a look at the counter argument that using social media can affect ones grades. At the ASBBS Annual Conference in Las Vegas, a study was presented that looked at the use of different social media sites divided by the user and their class standing, the amount of time spent on it, and ultimately whether it affected the students GPA or not. The study showed that most people were using facebook, and then twitter and youtube followed being the next most popular. Most of the sites sampled were used for mostly one to fifteen minutes at a time, making the trips to the site quick, sweet, and simple. Though, it did show that Facebook was usually used for long periods of time, with the majority of time spent being between 45 minutes and an hour. At the end of the article, it says that facebook has been linked to students grades lowering, but twitter and youtube showed little to no correlation (864 Stollak). Well, I would be lying if I said I didnt see that coming. Obviously if you are spending an hour at a time on facebook and doing it multiple times a day youre not going to have time to do much work or studying. One thing that you have to remember about this, and most other things, is that most

things are good in moderation but too much is exactly that, too much. You cant just use facebook for 5 hours and do your homework for an hour and expect to make good grades. Moderation is key, especially in this situation. Another study was done at the University of Illinois at Chicago by John Pasek, whom looked at three different samples; freshman at UIC, a national random sample of 14 to 22 year-olds, and the third was a sample of the change in GPA from 2007-2008 for another national sample of 14 to 23 year-olds. At the end of the study, Pasek also found that the use of facebook does not correlate with dropping of grade point average. In his three samples, two showed little to no correlation between facebook use and GPA, and the third actually showed that over a year facebook users were actually more likely to make better grades than worse grades. Even when demographics were looked at (we all know that demographics could lead to inconsistencies or hiccups in the data) there was still no affect on grades with facebook use. Now, take a step back and realize what you just read. Does that make sense to you? What I am telling you is this; when your students are writing your papers they are on facebook, on twitter, listening to music, being distracted, and in the end it is not affecting their work whatsoever. How does this make any sense? Wouldnt you think that your students would lose their train of thought after creeping through their old high school girlfriends profile pictures? It does not make much sense to me either, but the one way I can make any sense of it is this: Think about all of the times someone gave you advice on how to study. They tell you that it is essential that you take breaks. I was always told that if I am working on something or doing homework that I should take short 15 to 20 minute breaks every hour or so to let my brain relax and run loose. The

way I look at it is whenever I click away from Microsoft word and onto the Internet, that is my break. All in all, I think doing that is even better than taking a break and watching TV, because I will always have that little W Microsoft Word icon staring at me while Im doing other things, guilt tripping me into going back to writing my paper. Though, I think you might just understand how social networking can aid students because you yourself are using it in the classroom. This next source should be interesting to you. In another study done to test how social media affects grades, the opposite side of the spectrum was viewed as researchers looked to see if using twitter in the classroom would help or hinder the students as far as GPA and engagement. The study showed that the students in the experimental group had overall higher grade point averages and significantly higher engagement in the class. Now, looking at what we are doing in class, this makes me excited to see this in action. The second part of the study shows in what ways twitter was being used that was beneficial, which is really something that you should see. Sometimes it was used like you use it, for updates to class and what not, but what is different between our situation and theirs is that the students actually used it and communicated with each other using twitter to make study groups or to help each other on homework (Junco). Twitter is not the only social network site that can be used to benefit the classroom; According to Jeff Cain, EdD, facebook can be beneficial when being used with school too, depending on how you use it. His study shows that using facebook to connect with classmates and ask questions or conduct surveys and such can really benefit your schoolwork, because it is a quick and easy way to access just about anyone. Looking at this study helps me realize how much social media really can help with grades, you just have to use it in the right context. Motivation and Engagement

were two of the main things that helped the students use twitter in the right way, which are two key components that you need to make anything successful. I believe that social networking is definitely something that high school teachers should use to help teach because it is a way of coming to the students and getting on their level, making things much easier and comfortable for the students. See, now we have gone from Does social networking make your grades bad? to Social networking can help my grades rise.. There have obviously been a few studies on whether or not social networking and social media affect academic performance. To pretty much summarize what Ive said so far, using facebook and twitter is not going to hurt your grades, if anything it will help them. All of the studies I looked at showed that using social networking sites have little to no effect on how you are doing in school, unless if you are using them to help with school, then they actually help. I believe as a result of this research that some time in the near future there will be an increase of teachers and professors trying to integrate the use of social media in the classroom.

Works Cited Cain, Jeff. "Online Social Networking Issues Within Academia and Pharmacy Education." American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 72.1 (2008): 10. Print. Capano, Nicholas, Johanna Deris, and Eric Desjardins. Social Networking Usage and Grades among College Students. Rep. University of New Hampshire Whittemore School of Business & Economics. Web. 26 Feb. 2014. Junco, R., G. Heiberger, and E. Loken. "The Effect of Twitter on College Student Engagement and Grades." Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 27.2 (2011): 119-32. Print. Pasek, Josh, Eian More, and Eszter Hargittai. "Facebook and Academic Performance: Reconciling a Media Sensation with Data." First Monday 14.5 (2009). First Monday. 23 Apr. 2009. Web. Stollak, Matthew J., Amy Vandenberg, Andie Burklund, and Stephanie Weiss. Getting Social: The Impact of Social Networking Usage and Grades among College Students. Rep. no. 1. Vol. 18. Las Vegas: ASBBS, 2011. Web. <http://asbbs.org/files/2011/ASBBS2011v1/PDF/S/StollakM.pdf>.

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