I just read No, Facebook is not ruining your grades followed through a link via MindShift and thought it a very relevant read in preparation for one of our book discussions for Saturday. The article summarized recent studies that found students, whom average 106 minutes a day on Facebook, suffer an average .12 GPA loss for each 93 additional minutes spent interacting with social media. So if you spend more than three hours a day on Facebook you will have a 3.38 GPA instead of a 3.5 GPA.
What I found more interesting were the findings that indicated the type of interactions students (and it stands to reason adults) have with social media seemed to result in higher or lower grades. Students who engaged in more social activities had lower grades than those who primarily used Facebook for informational activities.
I think this is extremely important information for anyone considering using social media in their classroom. If our goal as educators is to prepare students for life after school, it seems logical that we engage students in informational and academic uses of social media thereby providing modeling and guided practice of the beneficial applications of the technology already utilized by our students. As I have said before, digital natives may know technology but that does not mean they know how to constructively use technology. Failing to do so may hinder student performance during future collegiate and professional endeavors.
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