Study links Facebook to lower GPA results in students

A recent study has confirmed the obvious that college students who spend more time on Facebook had lower GPAs and put them at risk of failing.

Study co-author Aryn Karpinski, a doctoral student and graduate teaching associate at Ohio State University, said the researchers wanted to look at demographic differences of student Facebook users and non-users and to investigate their typical profiles.

The study showed that frequent Facebook users typically spend less time studying and receive lower GPA scores than students who do not use the service at all.

Among the 219 students surveyed, non-users had GPAs between 3.5 and 4.0, while users received 3.0 and 3.5 GPAs. It also found that users averaged 1 to 5 hours of studying per week, compared to 11 to 15 hours of studying by non-users.

We say that use of Facebook leads to lower grades and less studying, but we did find a relationship there, Aryn Karpinski, a co-author of the study and a doctoral student at Ohio State University, said in a statement.

There's a disconnect between students' claim that Facebook use doesn't impact their studies, and our finding showing they had lower grades and spent less time studying, she said.

The study concludes that there may be a correlation between how Facebook impacts studies and how students believe Facebook impacts studies.

However, this study is the first of its kind and was only done at one university. More studies on the relationship between Facebook and how it affects students would need to be done to get a broader perspective on the affect.