Facebook lowers exam results

You may have seen headlines such as this about a month ago based on research done by Paul Kirschner and Aryn Karpinski reported in Computers in Human Behavior Volume 26 Issue 6 (November 2010).

The abstract of the article (Facebook and Academic Performance) says: “There is much talk of a change in modern youth – often referred to as digital natives or Homo Zappiens – with respect to their ability to simultaneously process multiple channels of information. In other words, kids today can multitask. Unfortunately for proponents of this position, there is much empirical documentation concerning the negative effects of attempting to simultaneously process different streams of information showing that such behaviour leads to both increased study time to achieve learning parity and an increase in mistakes while processing information than those who are sequentially or serially processing that same information. This article presents the preliminary results of a descriptive and exploratory survey study involving Facebook use, often carried out simultaneously with other study activities, and its relation to academic performance as measured by self-reported Grade Point Average (GPA) and hours spent studying per week. Results show that Facebook® users reported having lower GPAs and spend fewer hours per week studying than nonusers.”

So, it’s not Facebook that is to the villain of the piece but the attempt of people (students in this study) to do more than one thing at a time using the same part of the brain. The results of this endeavour are evidenced in essays quoting Martin Luther King having problems with Pope Leo X and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

It is, of course, perfectly possible, as the researchers not, to walk along the street, chew gum and listen to music “though even this sometimes leads to walking into street lamps or falling off curbs”.

Task switching, which is what these student are doing, is an art which has been perfected by parents (mainly mothers) so that they can simultaneously be cooking the dinner and be aware of what the child(ren) are up to in another room. Switching from stirring the sauce to shouting at the kids and back again is inbuilt and can occur with split second precision but it is not multitasking.

If you can get hold of a copy of the article it is really worth reading (I’ve just finished it) – particularly if you are a parent faced with “Of course I can be texting, watching YouTube and doing my algebra homework at the same time”.

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