Facebook and Learning: Evil or Benign?

Reynol Junco (Lock Haven University - Department of Academic Development and Counselin) and Shelia R. Cotten (University of Alabama at Birmingham - Department of Sociology and Social Work) posted their paper, A Decade of Distraction? How Multitasking Affects Student Outcomes, on SSRN (here). (H/T: Nicholas Economides)  The abstract: 

The proliferation and ease of access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as Facebook, text messaging, and instant messaging has resulted in ICT users being presented with more real-time streaming data than ever before. Unfortunately, this has also resulted in individuals increasingly engaging in multitasking as an information management strategy. The purpose of this study was to examine how college students multitask with ICTs and to determine the impacts of this multitasking on their college GPA. Using web survey data from a large sample of college students at one university (N = 1,839), we found that students reported spending a large amount of time using ICTs on a daily basis. Students reported frequently searching for content not related to courses, using Facebook, emailing, talking on their cell phones, and texting while doing schoolwork. Hierarchical (blocked) linear regression analyses revealed that using Facebook and texting while doing schoolwork were negatively associated with overall college GPA. Conversely, emailing was positively associated with college GPA. Engaging in Facebook use or texting while trying to complete schoolwork may tax students’ capacity for cognitive processing and preclude deeper learning, while emailing may be directly related to learning. Our research indicates that the type and purpose of ICT use matters in terms of the educational impacts of multitasking.

It's not shocking that people who are distracted are less likely to perform well in their courses. It is intriguing, though, that it's not just how much time people spend doing something like Facebook or the fact that students use Facebook that may predict success or failure -- it might be how students use Facebook that matters.  The authors explain: 

While the finding that using Facebook and texting while doing schoolwork was negatively related to GPA was congruent with previous research on multitasking as well as Mayer and Moreno’s (2003) framework for understanding how multitasking can affect the learning process, the finding that using email while doing schoolwork was not. The distinction between using Facebook or texting and email may lie in the nature of how the technologies are used. Previous research on Facebook use has shown that how Facebook is used is a better predictor of academic outcomes than how much time is spent on the site (Junco, in press). Specifically, Junco (in press) differentiates between using Facebook for activities that involve collecting and sharing information which predicted better academic outcomes than using Facebook for socializing. The social/information gathering or sharing distinction seems to apply for multitasking behaviors as well—clearly, text messaging and use of Facebook are social activities while using email can be considered academic because students tend to use email for communication with their professors and their university and not for communication with friends (Carnevale, 2006; Lenhart, et al., 2005; Salaway, et al., 2007).

It's hard to imagine using Facebook during class would facilitate learning in very many instances, but this is a good reminder that Facebook (and the like) are neither inherently evil nor benign.  As is often the case in the law, it depends.

--JPF