So you see, there’s this doctoral student in education at Ohio State University who surveyed 219 of her own school’s students and determined that “those who used Facebook achieved lower grades”. The humor of that story being tagged as “entertainment news” did not elude me, by the way. Oh wait, that’s not right…what she actually said was:

“We can’t say that use of Facebook leads to lower grades and less studying – but we did find a relationship there…There’s a disconnect between students’ claim that Facebook use doesn’t impact their studies, and our finding showing they had lower grades and spent less time studying.”

So what you’re saying is…if people are doing something other than studying, then they’re spending less time studying? Wow. Insightful. Thanks to WebProNews for actually providing the details of the study, as I had a humdinger of a time finding them on my own:

On average, Facebook users in the study had GPAs between 3.0 and 3.5, while non-users had GPAs between 3.5 and 4.0. In addition, users said they averaged one to five hours a week studying, while non- users studied 11 to 15 hours per week.

The study surveyed 219 students at Ohio State, including 102 undergraduate students and 117 graduate students. Of the participants, 148 said they had a Facebook account.

The study found that 85 percent of undergraduates were Facebook users, while only 52 percent of graduate students had accounts.

Findings indicated that 79 percent of Facebook users claimed it did not have an impact on their academic performance. In open-ended questions, users said they were not on Facebook enough to notice an impact, and stressed that academics were a priority for them.

Karpinski emphasized that the results don’t necessarily mean that Facebook use leads to lower grades.

“There may be other factors involved, such as personality traits, that link Facebook use and lower grades,” she said.

“It may be that if it wasn’t for Facebook, some students would still find other ways to avoid studying, and would still get lower grades. But perhaps the lower GPAs could actually be because students are spending too much time socializing online.”

Now, I don’t claim to be an academic, but I am a research study junkie. One of my favorite things to do is to pick apart research studies because, truly, you can make them sound however you want in order to push your own agenda or prove your own hypothesis. I could write another six paragraphs about that, but will spare you all the gory details. Trust me. But, the fact that the researcher specifically mentions other factors may be influencing the reduction in GPA completely negates the “outcome” of the study.

I do not claim to be a 20-year old college student either, but I once was. I didn’t have a Facebook account but believe me, back then if I wanted to waste time and not study and procrastinate and watch my GPA suffer, I was going to do it. And, I did. It was called Sega Genesis Golf. The folks who are on Facebook nine hours a day clearly have a different set of priorities than people who don’t have a Facebook account or who use it in moderation. Is that a bad thing? I would argue it isn’t. Facebook isn’t some evil overlord who chains you to your desk and forces you to fill out quizzes about which Nebraska town you should live in.

You see Bob, it’s not that they’re lazy…they just don’t care. I suppose a fantastic companion piece to this study could be titled, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy with a great GPA, but no social skills…virtual or otherwise.” I could argue that young men and women who are in dating relationships in college also get worse grades than their single counterparts, or college students who eat ramen five times a week use proportionately more water than students who only eat it three times a week.

On a macro level, I suppose the “outcome” of this “study” really doesn’t matter much. People are always going to find more interesting things to do when the task in front of them seems uninteresting. Classmates in my MBA program blow off project meetings and deliverables all the time in favor of more interesting things, but when you grow up and get out into the real world, that sort of activity is given the politically correct moniker of Maintaining a Work/Life Balance.

Maybe I’ll have to try that next term…”Sorry folks, I’d love to go to that client meeting…but I need to see if I can find some pieces of art in Mafia Wars.” Better yet, maybe it’s time to start looking at Ph.D. programs.