Source: Xinhua

04-15-2009 10:50

BEIJING, April 14 (Xinhuanet) -- College students who use Facebook have significantly lower grade point averages (GPA) than those who do not, according to a new survey.

College students who use Facebook have significantly lower  grade point averages (GPA) than those who do not, according  to a new survey.(File photo)

According to the study by doctoral candidate Aryn Karpinski of Ohio State University and her co-author Adam Duberstein of Ohio Dominican University, students who express their membership regularly to the 200-million-member social network do worse in school tests. "In fact, the majority of them who Facebook daily do worse by as much as one whole grade," said the researchers.

Karpinski said, "our study shows people who spend more time on Facebook spend less time studying. Every generation has its distractions, but I think Facebook is a unique phenomenon."

The study, which will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association on April 16, surveyed 219 undergraduate and graduate students and found that the GPAs of Facebook users typically ranged a full grade lower than those of nonusers — 3.0 to 3.5 for users versus 3.5 to 4.0 for their non-networking peers.

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Editor:Yang Jie