Kids love social networks, from Bebo through MySpace to Facbook, twitter and others. They can spend hours on them, but what’s the impact on their education and likely grades?
Facebook students underachieve in exams – Telegraph : An American study has found that students who spend their time adding friends, chatting and “poking” others on the website may devote as little as one hour a week to their academic work.
About 83 per cent of British 16 to 24-year-olds are thought to use social networking sites to keep in touch with friends and organise their social lives.
The study suggests that using social networking has damage achievement, although 79% of students felt it wouldn’t. Other articles indicate that kids are much better at mutual support and sharing, particularly things like revision notes and information and help about assignments.
That perhaps highlights a difference here in the UK compared to the USA; much of the UK grade determination in some exams comes from coursework and assignment marking, rather than examination. It would be easy to debate the merits of one or other system, but perhaps one is more suited to a social media world than the other. I guess the question then becomes which one prepares the kids better for the world they face, for that is the only real purpose of education.
The Ohio report shows that students who used Facebook had a “significantly” lower grade point average – the marking system used in US universities – than those who did not use the site.
If you have kids would such a study change your attitude as a parent to their use of these sites, or do you think that they can co-exist with good studies?
