Study Hacks: "At the end of his first semester at Penn, a student whom I’ll call Daniel was disappointed to learn that his GPA was a lackluster 2.95. Following the Study Hacks orthodoxy that study habits should be based on evidence — not random decisions or peer pressure — Daniel asked himself a crucial question: What are the better students doing that I’m not?
When he surveyed his classmates, he noted something interesting: “the high-scoring kids weren’t on Facebook.”
Emboldened by this observation, Daniel decided to do the unthinkable: he deactivated his Facebook account.
His GPA jumped to an exceptional 3.95."
16 comments:
I find this a bit ridiculous. I do not believe that by simply deactivating his facebook account this kid raised his gpa that much. He was worried about his low scores, so I'm sure he took other measures to increase his grades along with cutting out his social networking account. I'm sure not spending time on facebook helped his cause, but I don't think it is legitimate to attribute his improvement to strictly that.
I agree, facebook is not the source of poor grades. Like anything extra curricular - be it tv, books, video games, the internet - something can always distract you from your work. I highly doubt just staying off facebook magically solved his grade problems. By relocating his time from internet to studies, than yes his grades would go up. I for one go on facebook every day and so far my grades are doing fine. Obviously when i have lots of homework i don't go on as often. That's just common sense and time management.
I agree but also disagree at the same time. I think telling yourself to stay off facebook, and actually doing it are two different things. I can say from experience that myspace pretty much ruined my grades second semester of sophomore year. Yes, it wasn't JUST myspace, but myspace lead to a lot of distractions and occupied a lot of my time and I was noticing that my grades were dropping a lot. So I deleted it, and felt less tied down in general. It was a really good decision, and left me with less to worry about. I think when something starts consuming you to the point where you can't focus on anything else, then you should get rid of it, whether that be the internet or whatever else. If you can manage your life + internet distractions, then that's awesome, and stick to that. A lot of people don't have the willpower though.
I have to disagree with this article. Having a facebook does not necessarily lower ones grade. Being a part of all the ridiculous games such as farmville or mafia wars or whatever else is more likely the cause then just simply being on facebook. Many people simply use facebook to stay in contact with friends and keep up with events going on.
Also deleting your facebook is not going to be the only thing to improve grades. You will be gaining more time, but unless you actually focus on the projects at hand instead of other distractions it makes no difference. To me the biggest thing that can help raise grades is time management, not just quitting facebook.
I think that facebook is not really the source of grade issues. For a lot of people that would deactivate it, they might just find an even worse use of time. And it is nice to keep in touch with those outside the everyday realm. However, I do agree with one point of the article, that facebook isn't absolutely necessary, but just because that is true doesn't mean it is a bad thing. I think that good grades are achieved more easily if you have a balance of work and other things, and facebook can certainly be one of them.
Facebook can be quite the time suck. I do have to say that I'm perhaps a little addicted to it? But at the same time, I have it on my phone, so the desire to constantly 'surf' is very minimal when I can just get the important stuff in short little messages instead of the WHOLE site. I think that it really comes down to how much work you HAVE to do versus how much work you SHOULD do. When you reach a certain point, facebook, and other things like it, becomes a momentary distraction before you realize you desperately need to finish those 5 comments before 6pm. Or whatever.
I can see how this kid could raise his grades by deactivating facebook, but honestly he raised his grades by forcing some time management on himself. There are plenty of ways to procrastinate besides facebook. The internet itself is a bottomless pit of time wasting. I think the lesson of this article is that sometimes to need to suck it up and stop procrastinating.
It’s really interesting to see this article about facebook and a student who actually tried to cut off face book because I myself have tried that many times in my life to up my grades or keep me less distracted, and I’ve always felt really disconnected when I tried to deactivate my account. its also interesting because the facebook design group lectured here at CMU last semester which I went to and really enjoyed, because they talked about all the tactics that they used to ensure that facebook was the most intuitive website that was really associated with getting a lot of information with ease of use, and that they were really big on always improving themselves and changing and updating features but I also think that with our generation of teenagers and young adults today, this type of social networking works to our disadvantage in that websites like facebook along with so many other things on the internet are overloading us with information that it affects our attention spans and makes us feel like we're multitasking and retrieving information quicker when what we're really doing is spreading our attention thinly between all the ten million windows we have open and in the end, I think the instant gratification of the internet will be detrimental to our study habits and the way we function and learn as students.
I agree with Ariel. This article really wasn't about facebook, but figuring out what are the distractions are in your life and how they're affecting your productivity. In the end it's down to time management and motivation. If you don't want to do something, anything will become a distraction, not just facebook.
I understand and admit to facebook being a large distraction, and a use of time. However, i would argue that without it, not much time would actually be gained. Facebook is terrific for keeping up with your friends- if you didn't have it you would spend more time keeping up with them in other ways, but the point is that THE SAME AMOUNT OF TIME WOULD BE SPENT. Also, as college students away from home, facebook is often the only way that we are keeping up with old friends, and often family. In another vein, facebook has turned itself into a great advertising tool that i use for all events i am organizing. I do believe i spend too much time on facebook, but don't think the negatives outweigh the positives
Increasing internet accessibility is surely a factor in a person's time management. This is especially true for college students who are the majority of people on facebook and other social networks. However, I do not think that simply quitting facebook is the quick-fix that this article makes it out to be. I personally find the social networking that websites like facebook provide important. While perhaps some people would need to restrict themselves from the internet while studying, it does not necessarily mean that they would have to stay away from it altogether.
I think the idea that there is a causal relationship between these two is a bit ridiculous. When we want to be distracted (due to poor work ethic, exhaustion, boredom, etc.) we will find a way. It's no easier to go read the news on facebook than to go watch a television episode, read a book, or visit a friend. When we can motivate ourselves to work, we will do so regardless of the form that distractions take. Part of the general lack of agency that my generation seems to embody is the attitude that when a distraction exists, we are powerless to ignore it. As far as learning and attitude, it's a lot more meaningful to have a facebook account and use it in a way that doesn't interfere with other priorities that to simply remove it alltogether - there will be some distractions in life that can't be completely removed, and must instead be handled in moderation. Sometimes I get distracted by listening to the radio - it doesn't mean I'm going to throw my stereo out the window, it means that I'm going to remember to focus when I need to, and enjoy the radio when I can afford to.
I think this article raises some interesting points. While I agree with many other comments that this student probably took some other measures to help bring his GPA back up, facebook can be a major time suck for some people. You can go from link to link, checking in on various people, or playing some of the various games (Farmville, etc.), it can really eat up your time if you don't pay attention. While obviously this isn't the case for all people, for some, getting off facebook could provide a key step in helping out with their grades, or even just taking a break from the instant communication of the internet in general. Sometimes disconnecting yourself from being in constant contact with people can allow you to focus and get a lot more work done than you might think possible. The internet can be a great thing sometimes, providing various sources of information, and entertainment, but it can also be one hell of a distraction too.
I think that Facebook can definitely be distracting to some people, but I don't think that getting rid of it is immediately going to help raise someone's grade. The valedictorian at my high school had a facebook account, and she had a 4.99 gpa coming out of high school. I think the key is to just limited how often you check it. Honestly, if I really needed to contact someone immediately, I'd call or text them, because it's much more likely that a person will have their cell phone on them than that they will be on facebook. I think that Facebook can be useful to stay in touch with people, but it's really not necessary to check it constantly. If people could just limit the amount of time they spend logged into facebook, I think that would help just as much as completely deactivating a facebook account.
Although I completely agree that deactivating his face book account could have had such great effects on his grade, I still think that there's a bit of an argument to be made for how long someone goes on face book. It seems that the thing that is always most immediate to you will be the one that you are going to worry about the most. It seems like they need to get their priorities straight first, then the rest will nicely fall into place. Once they establish what it is that they are truly aiming for -- in any context -- and then they will be able to accomplish more. Therefore, it's their problem, not, Facebook's.
I would call myself an occasional Facebook user. And I get crap for it sometimes. People will ask me why I have not responded to a post, or accepted their friend request. While I do believe that Facebook is an amazing network, that allows connections that would never exist without it (or something like it), I think sometimes people will place more worth on a Facebook interaction than it deserves.
Regarding it affecting your grades, if Facebook is negatively affecting you, it is your fault. What is happening in the here and now must be more important that what is happening over the internet.
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