We blogged a while back about some research suggesting Facebook use was correlated with low grades. Well, one Facebook-using professor named Eszter Hargittai thought the data looked fishy. So did Josh Pasek, a graduate student who got in touch with Hargittai — through Facebook, of course — and asked if she’d like to work on a paper with him challenging the earlier findings. Their paper, written with Eian More, has just been published. Analyzing a larger sample size than the original study did, the authors found no correlation at all between Facebook use and G.P.A. In defense of her work, the original study’s author, Aryn C. Karpinski, told the Chronicle of Higher Education: “I completely acknowledge the limitations of my research. What I found is so exploratory — people need to chill out.” [%comments]
Correction: Facebook Does Not Make You Stupid
TAGS: Facebook
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I concur. I’m with #2 on this one.
I’ve been following the discussion of this study over on crooked timber for a while, and the original study never made claims of causation but was reported as so by the media because they love that kind of story. Hargittai was disputing the idea that there was a causation, but in expanding the sample size found that not only was there no reason to suspect causation, there is no likely correlation either.
Zach, glad to see that you got the point. The issue is that it was problematic to claim either correlation or causation given the major limitations of the original study.
For a good article related to this, read the following…
http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/facebook_and_procrastination.php?page=1
The latest study by Pasek and others was opportunistic and participating in the same media sensationalism that they are shunning. Who gets pleasure from beating up on young researchers before they even start their careers? That’s unprofessional and definitely not collegial.
Sarah, I invite you and others to read our original article. Our goal was to make sure people didn’t walk away with the wrong conclusions about the relationship of Facebook and grades. There are no personal attacks in the piece.
Oh my. I just read Karpinski’s response.
He really, really, did not do himself a favor.
http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2503/2183
Some of the stuff he writes is just awful – e.g. Pasek et al. recode their dependent variable to a 0-1 scale, which he clearly doesn’t understand, suggesting logit regression?
He also doesn’t seem to appear the relationship between sampling and statistical inference (if you random sample – like in Eszter’s data, you can make inferences about the population from which you sample – UIC first years in that case. If you sample by convenience you cannot draw any inference whatsoever. )
and so on.
He really should have had a faculty advisor stop him. I hope he isn’t looking for a career in academia – the first study – flawed as it was – might still have helped him. This response is going to hurt. a lot.