Alexander Schenk Mr.

Padgett ENGL 1102 February 25th, 2014 Annotated Bibliography Inquiry: Can social media affect students grades? If it does, how much of an impact does it really make? Proposed Thesis: Social media is distracting people from their priorities, and; students grades are falling due to too much focus on social media. Davis, Riley. "Social Media Use May Lead to Poor Grades." Brown Daily Herald. Brown Daily Herald, 24 Apr. 2013. Web. 24 Feb. 2014. In this article, it talks about a study done to determine whether or not social media affected female first-year college students. The study was intended to track their use of social media, so they tracked their use of things like the internet, television, and music. According to the article, on average out of the 500-person study, each female spent around twelve hours a day on social media. Girls who spent more time on Facebook and Twitter were reported spending less time on academics than average, and those girls who were watching television and reading magazines were reported to have a lower academic confidence. Which, this all makes sense because it is just common knowledge that if you spend a lot of time on Facebook, that will decrease the amount of time you spend on academics. Though I did have a small problem with this study, some of it really didnt make much sense to me. I would not call neither television nor music social media, I would call them some other type of media, but definitely not social media. I think
Comment [AP2]: But this can be true of anything really. Building model airplanes, playing tennis, etc. Comment [AP3]: Does the article lump these things together? Or are they simply drawing analogs to social media? Because this same conversation has likely existed for years; surely back when television first became a household staple. Comment [AP4]: Are you splitting hairs. Is this really worth the time spent, or should to keep your conversation focused elsewhere? Comment [AP1]: Why is this in bold?

that this could have affected the studies outcomes and it sort of puts on a false cover of the study. Another thing about this study that I did not like was that it only focused on female students. I do not think that only studying one gender would accurately depict how both men and women are affected. Martin, Chuck. Social Networking Usage and Grades Among College Students. UNH.edu. University of New Hampshire Whittemore School of Business & Economics, n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2014. This is a study that was conducted by the business school at the University of New Hampshire to see how the use of social media affected students. I really like this source because it looks at multiple different websites individually and sees how each affects the students. Contrary to what you might think, the study found that there is no correlation between grades and the amount of time that students used social media. The study showed that even with high use of social media students were still getting As and Bs. There was hardly even a difference between the grades of the high users and the low users, 63% of high users made good grades, where as 65% of low users did too. To me that was the biggest surprise. High users of Ffacebook made the exact same percentage of good grades as the low users did. I also think that this is a good source because it was a study done in a classroom at a university, which means it must be some what credible considering it is a professor teaching a class doing the study. Junco, R., G. Heibergert, and E. Loken. "The Effect of Twitter on College Student Engagement and Grades." Ferris.edu. Blackwell Publishing, 25 Aug. 2010. Web. 26 Feb. 2014. Three researchers from three different universities (Lock Haven U., South Dakota State U., and Penn State U.) did a research study to see how the use of Twitter
Comment [AP7]: Okay, but perhaps you should compare its findings with other, peer-reviewed studies and decide then if this source is reliable. This is a tough one because you would have to imagine the limitations this study might have had. Comment [AP6]: So how does this affect your thesis? Comment [AP5]: Okay, so how will this affect your research?

would affect the grades of college students. They took 125 college students and told 75 to use Ttwitter and 50 to not (the control group) and they would then compare how each student did at the end of the semester. This study came to find that Twitter did not hinder students nor faculty from engaging in their academia. It states that there are facts and proof that show that Ttwitter can be used to aid the learning process. Again, this is very surprising to me because my initial thought was that the use of social media would take away from academics because of the distraction it causes while doing homework or research. Lomeli, Joaquin, Jr. "Social Media Affects Grades." Coyote Student News. College of Southern Nevada, 4 Oct. 2013. Web. 26 Feb. 2014. This article begins by citing a study done at Johnson and Wales University in Rhode Island, stating that over 80 percent of students are using social media while doing their homework, resulting in a negative affect on their grades. The author of the article (who I presume is a student as well) continues to interview students asking about their study habits. One student he interviews says that he has a window open on Facebook at all times while he is doing homework, and switches back and forth between it and his homework while studying. He continues to say that, It usually takes me a couple hours to finish the assignment because Im constantly getting easily distracted. I would agree with this student because he and I share the same problem, it takes me up to an hour to finish an assignment that should take me only 20 minutes just because I am always texting or checking my Facebook every five minutes. The article starts to take a turn afterwards and talks about how social media affects face-to-face interaction, but that doesnt have to do with my topic.
Comment [AP10]: Why are you presuming? You should know. Comment [AP8]: Okay, this is interesting, but your thesis is still arguing the opposite. Comment [AP9]: This doesnt sound peerreviewed.

Nauert, Rick. "Social Media, Facebook & Twitter Use May Harm Grades of College Freshman." Psych Central.com. Psych Central News, 12 May 2013. Web. 9 Mar. 2014. The first thing that I noticed about this source is that it is not from a scholarly journal, though the writer has a PhD, and the editor (John M. Grohol) has a PsyD, so it could go either way as to if it is credible or not. The actual contents of the article are similar to that of my first source, as a study was done once again on females only. The study showed that females who used social media over 12 hours a day were showing lower academic performance than those who were not using social media. The study came to a conclusion that social media is not going to go away any time soon, so professors should probably try and integrate it into their teachings, to connect with the students personal lives, and make the learning easier for the student.
Comment [AP12]: Okay, so what about you? What do you think? Comment [AP11]: Be a little more assertive than this.

Alex, It seems to me that youve found some conflicting information. I like the last source, because there seems to be a specific argument about the topic that seems valuable and worthy of conversation. On the other sources, you seem to be simply reporting the facts as opposed to being an active participant in the conversation. Also, a couple of sources seem to have shaky reliability. Id like to either see you discuss how these sources will affect your argument or find something else altogether. I need to see greater connections and a more direct conversation to your thesis here.