Facebook messes up your GPA
Researchers from Ohio State University find that those who enjoy Facebooking do less well in exams. Those who are on Facebook every day may do as much as one grade worse than those who don't.
It's a crisis even worse than the Twitteresque redesign, even worse than the terms of service contretemps.
Yes, researchers at Ohio State University have delved deep into the habit that is Facebook and concluded that those who express their membership regularly do worse in school tests.
In fact, they say, the majority of those who Facebook daily do worse by as much as one whole grade.
Aryn Karpinski, one of the Ohio State education department researchers, was quoted in the Times of London as saying: "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."
Karpinski will be presenting her findings this week at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association.
Some 68 percent of the Facebookers among the 219 young things questioned enjoyed a significantly lower GPA than those who eschewed friending and poking.
I don't like to alarm anyone, but might I suggest this research be given an incomplete?
If the researchers had suggested that with every hour you spend on Facebook, your GPA sinks proportionately, then perhaps parents might be entitled to put controls on social networking and demand that their children get rid of their 5,000 closest chums.
But I have a suspicious and entirely unscientific feeling that all this research may tell us so far is that bookwormy, people-uncomfortable types do well in school tests.
So nothing's changed, right?