Facebook and failure

A new Ohio State University study reached a conclusion that’s almost “too obvious to bear blogging about,” said Christopher Null in Yahoo! Tech. Namely, "Facebook is a ridiculously huge distraction”—surveyed Facebook users had GPAs equivalent to a full letter grade lower than “their non-Facebookin’ counterparts.” Yet 79 percent of Facebook addicts said the site had “no impact on their work.”

And maybe it didn’t, said J.R. Raphael in The Inquisitr. The problem with this sort of “misleading” study is that it confuses correlation with causation. Sure, some students waste time on Facebook, but the likely explanation is that those students “simply aren’t motivated to spend the time needed in order to get high grades in their academic work.”

And Facebook points to a University of Melbourne study from earlier this month, said Anita Hamilton in Time, which found that Facebook use and other personal Web surfing at work makes employees sharper and more productive. That said, the Ohio State study "isn’t the first to associate Facebook with diminished mental abilities,” so log out and stay tuned in.

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