By Emma Campbell
Staff Writer
There’s no denying, we’ve all done it.
You have that paper to write, that presentation to
finish, but you have to get online for just a second. You just need to check Facebook one more time or watch that new music video really quick. And then somehow you look at the clock and hours have passed.
The Internet, that vast and illimitable black hole of time and energy, has once again aided you in the refined sport of procrastination.
But there is no harm in it, right? That may not be the case according to a study done at Ohio State University.
The relatively small exploratory study was one of the first of its kind to prove that there may be a correlation between lower grades in college students who use the social networking site Facebook.
In the study, 219 students at Ohio State, including 102 undergraduate students and 117 graduate students were surveyed. Of these students, 148 of them had a Facebook account.
The study found that 85 percent of undergraduates were Facebook users, while only 52 percent of graduate students had accounts. Furthermore, the study found that students employed in paying jobs were less likely to have a Facebook account compared to those who spent more time doing extra-curricular activities.
Though students claimed that their Facebook use did not affect their academics, the study found that Facebook users had an average of 3.0 – 3.5 G.P.A. scores compared to the students who did not have a Facebook account, who averaged a 3.5 – 4.0 G.P.A.
The study admits that there is not enough evidence to provide causation of Facebook usage to lower grades, but there is a correlation between the two.
Hindsight is 20-20, we all know that Facebook can take away from study time, but what about the internet in general?
According to Marketing Charts, college students spend an average of 12 hours a day on some kind of media; internet, cell phones, mp3 players, television, and/or gaming devices. Of those 12 hours, about 9.5 are spent on some device with Internet access.
With so many media outlets around us, it has become even easier for college students to become distracted and to procrastinate.
So how do Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College students spend their time?
In a campus survey of 35 undergraduate students, the average amount of time, per day, spent on Facebook was three to four hours; two to three hours spent on YouTube; and zero to one hour spent on blogging sites, including Twitter. When asked how the student usually spends their time procrastinating, 30 out of the 35 students said: on the Internet.
Although it seems to be an impossible task, there are several steps students can take to help end, or at least control, their tendencies to procrastinate.
First, assess the tasks at hand: make a list of the things that need to get done and rate them in order of importance. Remember the “once it’s begun, it’s half done” cliché, getting started is usually the hardest part, but after you begin something, the rest of the process will follow.
Remember to reward yourself. Take short breaks if you start getting frustrated with tasks; but don’t get online. Take a walk, read a couple of pages from a book, even turn on the television for a moment, but do not check Facebook to see if someone interesting updated their status.
In the end, students need to separate actual reality from virtual reality. If you spend so much time avoiding real problems for virtual pleasures, you’ll likely miss out on the world around you.
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