Introduction
Today in society the use of social
medias, especially Facebook, is becoming incredibly popular and has recently
interested scholars. There has been much
controversy over if students using has Facebook is a positive or negative
effect on their academics. Several
studies have suggested that students who frequently use Facebook results in a
lower GPA. While existing studies have
clearly established that Facebook negatively affects a college students GPA,
they have not individually studied students and confidently received correct
information. In this article I argue
that recent studies have not specifically researched individuals students and
their Facebook usage. Instead of
focusing on individuals researchers created surveys that could have been
inaccurately filled out by students. My
point here that studies on Facebook should be looked at more specifically at
individual students should interest those who are researching the effects
Facebook has on a students academics.
Beyond this limited audience, however, my point should speak to anyone
who cares about the larger issue of the recent popularity of Facebook on students. Ultimately, what is at stake here is research
on the effects of Facebook can become more specific through individual
self-studies. This article is structured
as follows; a review of the literature I researched on before coming to my
conclusion, my methodology, data analysis, ideas for further research, and a
conclusion.
Literature Review
There were many articles claiming that more time
spent of Facebook resulted in a lower GPA or a negative outcome on
academics. These articles included, No A 4U: The Relationship Between
Multitasking And Academic Performance, Supporting Student Transition Through
Social Media, and The Relationship
Between Frequency of Facebook Use, Participation In Facebook Activities, And
Student Engagement and, Facebook. They all furthered each other’s arguments claiming
that although being active on Facebook could greatly help your social life it
can hinder your academic life. Again,
they found this data through surveys.
They compared the GPA’s of students who chose to use Facebook more
often. The students who spent more time
looking through pictures, posting statuses, playing games, and commenting
actually had lower GPAs. In, Supporting Student Transition Through Social
Media, the researchers found that Facebook was a tool to help students not
feel as isolated. Therefore, Facebook is
seen as a positive social yet causes a distraction on academics. Participation In Facebook Activities, And
Student Engagement, enhances the conversation in agreeing with the above
article and then claiming that Facebook being a positive or negative effect
depends on what you do on it and for how long.
Its effects depends on if you are looking at pictures, playing games,
commenting, etc.
The other conclusions some of the articles made were
some of the positive effects Facebook had on a students overall academics, not
GPA. In the article, Findings on Facebook In Higher Education, the
researchers feel that since students are becoming so involved with Facebook
that if professors add Facebook into their lectures and classes that it could
be a helpful benefit to students.
Although this is only if professors decide to change and if they don’t
it is harmful to students. Teen’s
knowledge of electronics over some older generations is not always a good
thing. The article, Distance Students’ Readiness For Social Media, also expresses and
agrees that Facebook as a positive aspect of academics. They claim that online students can greatly
benefit from social media. It gives them
a way to collaborate with other students through the web. This is one special case that Facebook seems
to be positive.
Another large discussion going on through some
articles were explaining why using Facebook for a social life should be
separated from academics. The article, A Study on the Motives of High School and
Undergraduate College Students for Using the Social Network Site Facebook
relate to this topic. It says that
Facebook can help stop loneliness and can help a student become involved in
many extra-curricular activates and groups.
For example, in, A Study on the
Motives of High School and Undergraduate College Students for Using the Social
Network Site Facebook they realize that mixing Facebook with academics can
be a bad thing. Since Facebook is such
an easy way to become connected once you are on it, it is hard to get off. It is a huge distraction if academic work is
trying to get done. After students were
given surveys it was clear that students only enjoy using Facebook for a social
and fun use.
Witty James Vince, et al. "Findings On Facebook In Higher
Education: A Comparison Of
College Faculty And Student Uses And
Perceptions Of Social Networking Sites." The Internet And Higher Education
13.(n.d.): 134-140. ScienceDirect. Web. 17 Sept. 2012.
This academic article is determining how likely college
professors versus college students are to use Facebook for personal and
academic use. They believe that since
the growth of Facebook with students recently was so powerful that the growth
of Facebook with the faculty will have the same outcome. They came to the
conclusion that because professors are not using Facebook it proves that
Facebook is not for academics but for only social communications.
Poellhuber,
Bruno, and Terry Anderson. "Distance Students' Readiness For
Social Media And Collaboration."
International Review Of Research In Open And Distance Learning 12.6 (2011):
102-125. ERIC. Web. 13 Sept. 2012.
This
academic article began because of the fast growing social medias in our society
and teachers are beginning to want to interact with their students through
these medias. The study came to the
conclusion that a significant amount of distance students enjoy being about to
collaborate with their peers, but a small amount do not. They found that the want to collaborate with
their peers increases with age, which I found to be surprising. The article gave me a positive way to look at
how Facebook can help with academics. In
special cases, like distance students, it gives them an easy way to connect
with others.
Woodley,
Carolyn, and Catherine Meredith. "Supporting Student Transition Through
Social Media." American Journal Of Distance
Education 26.2 (2012): 86-95. ERIC. Web. 13 Sept. 2012
In
the article the Faculty of Business and Law’s Facebook group is studied to find
the use of Facebook in an educational setting.
They look at specifically international students and how Facebook is an
advantage to them. Their research
consisted of a complete analysis of the Facebook page. They calculated the amount of communication
between the faculty and the students and decided whether or not it was
beneficial and appropriate. The
researchers came to the conclusion that using Facebook for “extra-curricular”
activity was positive for students, however, a discussion still needed to be
made about the appropriateness of using Facebook for teaching. They believe the main positive to Facebook is
to help students find a group to belong to so they do not feel isolated.
Junco,
Reynol. "The Relationship Between Frequency Of Facebook Use, Participation
In Facebook Activities, And Student
Engagement." Computers & Education 58.1
(2012): 162-171. ERIC. Web. 13 Sept. 2012.
The results of the surveys proved that, “Both time spent on Facebook and time spent
engaged in certain Facebook activities can be positively predictive, negatively
predictive, or positively and negatively predictive of engagement, depending on
the outcome variable.” They found that
depending on whether or not you were playing games on Facebook or looking at
pictures decided whether or not it was a positive or negative influence. The article points out that there was a
negative relationship between Facebook chatting and preparing for class but
they did not evaluate it.
Hart, Michael J. "A Study on the Motives of High School and
Undergraduate College
Students for Using the Social
Network Site Facebook." ProQuest LLC (2010). ERIC. Web. 17 Sept. 2012.
Michael J. Hart, to fulfill his
Doctoral Degree in Education, presented this academic article to the Faculty of
the Department of Education at Liberty University. His study compared the difference and outcome
of using Facebook in college and high school. The results found that
undergraduate college students use Facebook to keep up with relationships.
Facebook is now one of the easiest ways to maintain these relationships with
the busy schedules that new students have.
It was also found that high school students had significantly more
friends on Facebook than the undergraduate college students, which I find
odd.
Reynol, Junco, and Cotten Shelia R. "No A 4 U: The
Relationship Between Multitasking
And Academic Performance."
Computers & Education 59.(n.d.): 505-514. ScienceDirect. Web. 28 Sept.
2012.
This academic article by Reynold
Junco, a part of the Department of Academic
Development and Counseling at Lock Haven University. The purpose of this research was to determine
how multitasking with technology communication and academics affects a student
GPA. For example, if a student is
texting a friend or checking up on Facebook while working on a class project or
studying. Students from a 4-year public
institution in the Northeastern United States were surveyed. The results showed that most students who are
multi-tasking are on Facebook. As I
expected, the results also showed that multi-tasking with the online medias
does have a negative outcome on a students GPA.
Robert McMorris, et al. "An Examination Of The Reciprocal
Relationship Of Loneliness
And Facebook Use Among First-Year
College Students." Journal Of Educational Computing Research 46.1 (2012):
105-117. ERIC. Web. 27 Sept. 2012.
This academic article is by Lai Lei
Lou and Zheng Yan, who attended the
University at Albany and State University of New York to “examine whether there
exists a reciprocal relationship between students’ use of social network sites
and their psychological well-being.” Their findings were, “Facebook intensity
had a positive impact on loneliness, but motive for using Facebook did not have
any impact on loneliness, whereas loneliness did not have an impact on Facebook
intensity or motive for using Facebook.”
Jomon Aliyas, Paul, Baker Hope M., and Cochran Justin Daniel.
"Effect Of Online Social
Networking On Student Academic Performance."
Computers In Human Behavior
28.(n.d.): 2117-2127. ScienceDirect. Web. 3 Oct. 2012.
This academic article started
because of how prominent Facebook is becoming as a communication tool in
colleges. The author Jomon Aliyas Paul,
from Kennesaw State University, wanted to find the effects the frequently used
communication tool was having on a student’s academic performance. A survey was made for business students at a
state university. Like many of the other
studies their results pointed to social medias, including Facebook, having a
negative impact on academics. It was
noted that from their results they found that, “Time spent on OSN is shown to
negatively impact academic performance. As time spent on social networking
sites increases, the academic performance of the students is seen to
deteriorate.” This proves to be a
negative effect.
After researching I came to the
conclusion that there was a gap in the way these researchers found their
research. Majority of the data collected
was from a large survey given to students.
I feel that these surveys can come with error. In my opinion, if I was given a survey online
about my Facebook usage I would not be able to easily recall how much time I am
spending on the website. Sometimes I
feel that I do not even realize how long I am actually on Facebook for. For this reason I feel that in order to
receive more accurate information about this topic research should be done more
specifically to individual students. For
example, a researcher should study one student at a time for a week and record
their exact Facebook usage.
Methodology
When
I first chose my topic on Facebook and academics I knew that’s what I wanted to
research but I wasn’t sure on how I wanted to state my exact, specific
question. Once I began researching I
found it interesting that there were findings claiming that Facebook is
directly related to academics. I wanted
to explore exactly why is it related and search for specific reasons. Through my research I found that most of the
data collected was from large surveys done by students online. I feel this type of data can become
inaccurate because students may be in a hurry to answer the surveys questions
or, for this instance, they just can’t remember anything about their time spent
on Facebook.
To start my
research I began by going to the University of Central Florida’s library
database website. I typed in key words
like, “Facebook”, “college students”, “academics”, and “effects”. All of these words helped to refine my search
in finding the right articles. Once I
began looking at the most popular articles I realized that my topic is a hot
conversation in todays society because of the increase of Facebook usage
lately. Therefore, it wasn’t hard to
find articles talking about the effects Facebook has on academics. Collecting this data was the easy part but
because this topic is so popular it was very challenging finding a research
gap.
I began to
realize that the most popular way to find data about the effects of Facebook
were from surveys. All of the surveys I
looked at were very broad having questions like, “How much time do you spend
commenting on Facebook pictures.” I feel
that students may have answered these questions not being able to remember the
correct amount of time actually spent on the site. For this reason I find some of their data
inaccurate and that a survey can show only a general idea of their Facebook
use. I have decided to solve this
problem by studying myself and finding the specific effects Facebook has on
myself and in turn, relating it to others.
My self-study
will be done to collect specific data on my Facebook usage. I have created a chart for me to fill out
every time I am using Facebook. The
study will go on for 3 days and the chart will be as follows:
|
Time spent on Fb
|
Productivity
|
Homework Load
|
Reason/Activity
|
Other/Notes
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Every time I look at Facebook I will
fill out the categories productivity and homework load with numbers 1-5, 5
being the strongest, and I will simply answer the other categories. After the completion of this chart I will be
able to see if Facebook is positively or negatively affecting me. I want to find if Facebook is a
procrastination tool and is only negatively affecting my work ethic. It could be that Facebook is worthless and a
waste of time.
Data Analysis
After realizing my research gap
is the accuracy of data I have decided I want to change my stakeholders. With my stakeholders being students before, I
feel that if they want to know the effects Facebook is having on them they will
have to research for themselves. I also
feel that other researchers will be interested in the way I found my data and
would like to compare it to their own. With that being said, my stakeholders
will be Reynol, Junco, Cotten Shelia R., and Jomon
Aliyas. They are all researchers
studying the effects of social medias on student’s academics.
After completing my six-day long
self-study I began to notice some obvious patterns showing up on my table. My goal of the self-study was to see when
Facebook was working in my favor, thus my feeling of productivity being high,
and when it was not working in my favor, thus feeling of productivity being
low. After analyzing my table it proved
that when I had a larger homework load I recorded a lesser feeling of
productivity. Therefore, when I had a
smaller homework load I recorded a greater feeling of productivity. For example, on October 29th, I
spent ten minutes on Facebook and recorded a five for productivity and a zero
for homework load. Since I had no
homework I felt as if I could enjoy Facebook more because it wasn’t taking up
my time I could have been using for homework.
My other example was on October 28th, I spent fifteen minutes
on Facebook feeling no productivity, recording a one. That
day I had to finish my ENC 1102 assignment and study for my Psychology test,
therefore, I recorded a five for homework load.
Since I had so much homework I recorded a one for my productivity
because I felt that I was wasting my time I could be using towards school on
Facebook.
This
pattern of high productivity when low homework load and low productivity when
high homework load continued throughout the whole six days. These data results made it obvious that
Facebook is only positive during certain times, under certain circumstances and
negative during the opposite. My
personal research proves that Facebook should only be used when I don’t have
much homework. Otherwise, it is proven
to have no productivity and only cause procrastination. I did note that I seemed to use Facebook more
when I had a high amount of homework.
This is because I seem to use Facebook as a big procrastination
tool.
Since
most of my homework is done on the computer Facebook becomes easily
accessible. This accessibility is the
reason for Facebook procrastination. The
ten through fifteen-minute intervals I spent on Facebook is valuable time I’m
losing that could be spent on homework.
I feel that this study has proven Facebook is more of a negative effect
than positive. This is because the times
I use Facebook the most is when I should be doing homework instead. Therefore, if I ditched Facebook I would have
more study and homework time.
All
of my data also helped to prove some of the other researchers results. For example, Reynol Junco found that Facebook
negatively effected GPA in his article, The
Relationship Between Multitasking and Academic Performance. When I chose to be on Facebook rather
than doing homework or studying is when my GPA is negatively affected. My self-study was able to show very accurate
results of data unlike the large surveys given to students.
My personal self-study is not enough
to prove the effects Facebook has on academics at a large scale, but it is a
start. In order to have more proof and
credibility with data a much larger study needs to be made. In order to keep up the accurate data, the
same self-studies should be used, just on more people. If randomly selected students were given this
study to partake in much more accurate data can come from it, rather than a
couple survey questions. Once students
individually partake in the self-study, for at lease one full week, they would
then send their results to the researcher.
All of the results can be used and analyzed. Specific, similar patterns should be looked
for in each of the self-studies and a conclusion can be made at a larger
scale.
Conclusion
My self-study proved that for me personally, Facebook
has a negative effect on my academics. I
spend time on Facebook that I could be using spent on academic related
activities. When I have a high homework
load my reasoning to be on Facebook turns negative. This data I collected of myself can be used to
compare to others who partake in a self-study similar to mine. Also, in order for research to become more
accurate, researchers should start studying individuals and their specific
Facebook habits.
Works
Cited
Jomon Aliyas, Paul, Baker Hope M., and Cochran Justin Daniel.
"Effect Of Online Social
Networking On Student Academic
Performance." Computers In Human Behavior 28.(n.d.): 2117-2127.
ScienceDirect. Web. 25 Oct. 2012.
Reynol, Junco. "The Relationship Between Frequency Of
Facebook Use, Participation
In Facebook Activities, And Student
Engagement." Computers & Education 58.(n.d.): 162-171. ScienceDirect.
Web. 25 Oct. 2012.
Reynol, Junco, and Cotten Shelia R. "No A 4 U: The
Relationship Between Multitasking
And Academic Performance."
Computers & Education 59.(n.d.): 505-514. ScienceDirect. Web. 25 Oct. 2012.
Appendix 1
|
Time spent on FB
10/25
|
Productivity
|
Homework Load
|
Reason/Activity
|
Other/Notes
|
|
10mins
|
2
|
4
|
Checking notifications,
reading statuses
|
Procrastinating my
homework
|
|
15mins
|
4
|
1
|
Checking notifications,
reading statuses, looking at pictures
|
|
|
5mins
|
4
|
1
|
Reading messages
|
|
|
10/26
10mins
|
3
|
1
|
Checking notifications,
reading statuses
|
|
|
15mins
|
3
|
1
|
Checking notifications,
reading statuses
|
|
|
10mins
|
3
|
1
|
Checking notifications,
reading statuses
|
|
|
5mins
|
4
|
1
|
Checking notifications,
reading statuses, looking at pictures
|
|
|
10/27
5mins
|
3
|
1
|
Updating status
|
|
|
5mins
|
4
|
1
|
Checking notifications,
reading statuses
|
|
|
15mins
|
3
|
2
|
Checking notifications,
reading statuses
|
|
|
5mins
|
4
|
2
|
Looking at pictures
|
|
|
10/28
5mins
|
2
|
4
|
Checking notifications,
reading statuses
|
|
|
15mins
|
1
|
5
|
Checking notifications,
reading statuses, looking at pictures, Facebook chatting
|
Procrastinating my
homework
|
|
10mins
|
1
|
5
|
Checking notifications,
reading statuses, looking at pictures, Facebook chatting
|
|
|
10mins
|
1
|
4
|
Checking notifications,
reading statuses, looking at pictures, Facebook chatting
|
Did a little of homework
assignment
|
|
5mins
|
2
|
2
|
Checking notifications,
reading statuses
|
Homework almost finished
|
|
10/29
5mins
|
4
|
1
|
Checking notifications,
reading statuses, looking at pictures
|
|
|
10mins
|
5
|
0
|
Checking notifications,
reading statuses, looking at pictures, Facebook chatting
|
No Homework!
|
|
5mins
|
5
|
1
|
Checking notifications,
reading statuses, looking at pictures
|
|
|
10/30
10mins
|
2
|
4
|
Checking notifications,
reading statuses, looking at pictures, Facebook chatting
|
|
|
5mins
|
1
|
4
|
Checking notifications
|
|
|
5mins
|
1
|
4
|
Checking notifications,
reading statuses
|
|
|
5mins
|
1
|
4
|
Looking at pictures
|
|
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