Social Networking Is Now Top Online Activity Global Social Networking Activities Now Account for 20% of Online

Minutes
George Winslow (Broadcasting & Cable) -- Multichannel News, 12/27/2011 5:41:30 PM New data from comScore shows that it is indeed a "social world" with social networking accounting for one in every five minutes spent online by users around the world, making it the most popular online activity. The new comScore report "It's a Social World: Top 10 Need-to-Knows About Social Networking and Where It's Headed," also found that more than half the world's Internet population visited Facebook.com in October 2011. Social networking sites now reach 82% of the world's Internet population ages 15 and older that accessed the Web from a home or work computer, representing 1.2 billion users around the globe, according to comScore. The United States, though, with 6.9 hours per person spent in online social network, did not even rank within the top 10 countries for social networking engagement. The report found that Israel led all countries with visitors spending an average of more than 11 hours on social networking sites during the month. Argentina ranked second at 10.7 hours, followed by Russian (10.4 hours) and Turkey (10.2 hours). The report found that women are more spending more time on social networking sites, with females worldwide spending on average 6.5 hours versus 5 hours for men worldwide. In North American women spent about 7.9 hours versus about 6 hours by men in North America in October of 2011. Europe and Latin America were the most social regions, with women spending an average of 8.2 hours in both regions during October of 2011 at social networking sites. The report also found widespread usage of social media across age groups, with 79.9% of people aged 55 and over spending time at social networking sites, versus 84.4% of those aged 15 to 24 worldwide. In North American 94.7% of those aged 55 and older spent time at social networking sites. Worldwide, females aged 15 to 24 spent the most time with social media (8.6 hours in October) but older women also were very active, with 4.9 hours. Mobile devices were also playing a key role in the growing use of social media. In the U.S. nearly one third (32%) of the total U.S. mobile population ages 13 and older reported accessing a social networking site at least once in October of 2011 via their phone. Even higher proportion of smartphone owners were active social media users. In the U.S., 64% of smartphone users accessed social networking sites at least once in October 2011, with two in five smartphone owners connecting via social networking nearly every day. The report noted, however, that ad revenue has not kept pace with usage. "Although more than a quarter of ads are seen on social networking sites, the category only attracts 15 percent of U.S. display ad dollars," according to the report. http://www.multichannel.com/article/478320Social_Networking_Is_Now_Top_Online_Activity.php

Social networking increases risk of teen drug abuse: study

By Molly O'Toole WASHINGTON | Wed Aug 24, 2011 4:22pm EDT (Reuters) - Time spent social networking increases the risk of teens smoking, drinking and using drugs, according to a national survey of American attitudes on substance abuse released on Wednesday. On a typical day, 70 percent of teens ages 12 to 17 -- 17 million teenagers -- spend from a minute to hours on Facebook, Myspace and other social networking sites, according to The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University. But for this same age bracket, social-network-savvy teens are five times more likely to use tobacco; three times more likely to use alcohol; and twice as likely to use marijuana than teens who do not spend any of their day on social networking sites. "The results are profoundly troubling ... the anything goes, free-for-all world of Internet expression, suggestive television programing and what-the-hell attitudes put teens at sharply increased risk of substance abuse," CASA Founder and Chairman Joseph Califano Jr said in a statement. Knowledge Networks surveyed 1,037 teens ages 12 to 17 and 528 parents of these teens over the Internet. QEV Analytics, Ltd. conducted the annual telephone survey of 1,006 teens 12 to 17, asking questions CASA has used to track trends. Results revealed that half of teens who spend any time social networking in a given day have seen pictures of kids "drunk, passed out, or using drugs on these sites." But even beyond the daily teen social networkers, 14 percent of teens who reported spending no time on such sites in a given day said they have seen pictures of drunk, passed out, or drug-using kids on the sites. Teens who had seen such pictures were four times likelier to be able to get marijuana, three times likelier to be able to get prescription drugs without a prescription, and twice as likely to be able to get alcohol in a day at most. Teens who had seen such pictures were also more than twice as likely to think they would try drugs in the future, and much more likely to have friends who used illegal drugs. "Especially troubling-- and alarming-- are that almost half of the teens who have seen pictures ... first saw such pictures when they were 13 years of age or younger," the report said. "These facts alone should strike Facebook fear into the hearts of parents of young children."

But the surveys, which also questioned adults, found that nine of 10 parents do not think teens spending time social networking are any more likely to drink or use drugs. Only 64 percent of parents said they monitor their child's social networking page. The authors of the report called for parents -- still the greatest influence on a teen's decision whether to smoke, drink, or use drugs -- to present a consistent and unified front against substance abuse. "In the cultural seas into which we toss our teens, parents are essential to preventing their substance abuse." The report also urged operators of social networking sites to curb such images and deny use to adolescents who post them. "Continuing to provide the electronic vehicle for transmitting such images constitutes electronic child abuse," it said. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/24/us-teens-idUSTRE77N69P20110824

ABSTRACT This research investigates the effects of social networks on students performance in online education which uses networking as an adjunct mode for enhancing traditional face-to-face education or distance education. Using data from a 40-student course on Advanced Management Information Systems (AMIS), we empirically tested how social networks (friendly, advising, and adversarial) related to students performance. First, advising network variables are positively related to student performance both in the class and on the forum. Adversarial variables are negatively correlated with almost all students performance. Second, advising and adversarial network variables are good determinants for overall academic performance; however, adversarial network variables are not influential on students performance on the forum. Friendship network variables are not determinants of students performance. Implications for the results are also discussed. I. INTRODUCTION The impact of the Internet on education is an important issue that has caught both educators and practitioners attention in recent years [1-4]. According to Harasim [5], three new modes of education delivery make online education distinctive. They are (1) adjunct mode: using networking to enhance traditional face-to-face education or distance education; (2) mixed mode: employing networking as a significant portion of a traditional classroom or distance course; (3) pure online mode: relying on

JALN Volume 7, Issue 3 September 2003 93

EFFECTS OF SOCIAL NETWORK ON STUDENTS PERFORMANCE: A WEB-BASED

FORUM STUDY IN TAIWAN Heng-Li Yang Professor Department of Management Information Systems National Cheng-Chi University 64 Section 2, Chihnan Road, Mucha Dist., 116, Taipei, Taiwan

networking as the primary teaching medium for the entire course or program. Among these three education delivery modes, the pure online mode has caught the most attention. Several successful cases or critical factors of pure online education have been reported [see especially 6, 7]. One major concern of online education is whether the learning is effective. Many studies have been conducted to explore the effectiveness of Web-based distance learning or asynchronous learning [8, 9]. Although most studies showed that the learning outcomes of distance learning or asynchronous learning are as effective as or more effective than those of traditional face-to-face teaching [1013], the results were not conclusive since the learning materials and goals might exert significant influence on outcomes. For example, conceptual learning might be different from technique learning [4]. Negative effects such as decrease in group effectiveness, increase in time required to complete tasks, and decrease in member satisfaction were confirmed [14]. Students feeling of isolation may also become an obstacle in pure online education [15]. The adjunct mode and the mixed mode of online education should be explored in more detail because these two modes of online education could possess the advantages of both pure online and traditional face-to-face teaching. Yet, few studies have been conducted to explore the adjunct mode of online education [4, 16, 17]. Little is known regarding the learning effectiveness of these forms of online learning. Several recent studies demonstrated that asynchronous online interaction might provide learners

flexibility, stimulate more innovative ideas, and facilitate learning. For example, DietzUhler and BishipClark [18] found that face-to-face discussions preceded by Computermediated Communications (CMC) were perceived to be more enjoyable and could include a greater diversity of perspectives than the faceto-face discussions not preceded by CMC. Hammond [19] also argued that there is a particular educational value in a communicative approach to online discussions. Benbunan-Fich and Hiltz [20] found that groups working in an asynchronous network environment produced better and longer solutions to case studies, but were less satisfied with the interaction process. Picciano [21] found that students online interactions were related to written assignments but not students final grades. Thus, it would be interesting to investigate students learning outcomes when online discussion forums are integrated into traditional classroom pedagogy, as in the adjunct mode of online education. The importance of interpersonal interaction in learning is undoubted. Several learning theories put special emphasis on the effects of interpersonal interaction on learning outcomes [22]. For example, collaborative learning theory assumes that learning emerges through interactions of an individual with others. Online collaborative learning has also been explored and substantial interaction differences were found when compared with face-to-face collaborative behaviors [23]. Constructivism regards learning as a social process that takes place through communication with others. The learner actively constructs knowledge by formulating ideas into words, and these ideas are built upon reactions and responses of others. In other words, learning is not only active but also interactive [24]. From the perspectives of collaborative learning

and constructivism, interpersonal interaction is one of the most important elements or processes of learning. As one of the most popular approaches for investigating human interactions, social network analysis is utilized in this study to contrast the social network effects on learners performance between online and offline learning. JALN Volume 7, Issue 3 September 2003 95 The measurement of student performance is certainly open to many definitions. Depending upon the content of the course and the nature of the students, successful completion of a course, course withdrawals, grades, added knowledge, and skill building are some of the ways by which performance is measured, [21]. It is not the intention of this study to measure the students perception of learning experiences, but rather to measure their credit achievements on the forum and in the class. To address the issue of learning effectiveness of this adjunct mode of online education, it is better to design a field experiment comparing student performance among three modes of online education. Unfortunately, it is difficult to design the same experimental conditions for all three modes (i.e. the same subjects, the same learning time) in a manner that makes the comparisons sound and valid. Questions raised in this study are: (1) is an individuals position in a social network related to his or her performance online and offline? (2) what kind of social relations are linked with a students academic performance? The main purpose of this study is to explore the impact of interpersonal relationship networks on

students academic performance online and offline, and to find out the key human relationship determinants for students performance.

II. THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL NETWORKS ON AN INDIVIDUALS PERFORMANCE

There is a growing body of studies emphasizing that individuals are embedded in their societies. Thus, the related social structure, though sometimes invisible, is often associated with instrumental outcomes, including power [25], innovation [26], learning outcomes [27], and job performance [28]. Haythornthwaite [29] examined the distance learners interactions in class and profiled students roles and information exchange among distance learners social networks. In a university course, Guldner and Stone-Winestock [30] empirically demonstrated that appropriate arrangement of groups according to each students position in a social network might increase the students learning satisfaction and academic performance. The social network approach holds that the behavior of an individual is affected by the kinds of relations, or technical ties, and networks more than by the norms and attributes that an individual possesses. The social, informational, or material resources that two individuals exchange characterize their ties. In social network analysis, these resource exchanges are termed relations. Some positive and negative relations are assumed to be related to an individuals performance. Researchers empirically demonstrated that

friendship and advice relations were positively related to a students academic performance and an employees job performance. On the other hand, the effects of an adversarial network were negatively related to performance [27, 28]. It seems worthwhile to investigate the effects of the three social networks on student performance online and offline. Centrality is one of the most important concepts in social network analysis. The most common notion is that if a person is central in his or her group, he or she is the most popular individual in the group and gets the most attention. In early sociometry literature, centrality is called social status [31] and the sociometric concept of star refers to the same idea. Intuitively, a point is central if it is at the center of many connections; the simplest and most straightforward way to measure point centrality is by the degree of connectivity in the graph. Therefore, it is interesting to study the relationship between an individuals centrality in campus social networks (friendship, advising, and adversarial networks) and his or her performance in the classroom and in the forum. JALN Volume 7, Issue 3 September 2003 96 C. Network factors on predicting academic performance As noted in the above discussions, friendship centrality, advice centrality and adversarial centrality were related to academic performance indicators. Hence, it would be interesting to study what were the best determinants of a students class performance offline and online. In addition, were there any differences between the determinants?

Table 3 presents the results of regression analyses with an individuals overall grade as the dependent variable and three network structure variables as the independent variables. As shown in Table 3, advice network centrality was the best determinant of a students grade, and adversarial centrality was another good predictor. These two network factors could explain 25 percent of the total variance. These results are comparable to findings by Sparrowe and colleagues [28]. In their study, advice network and hindrance network variables could explain 13 percent of the variance in in-role performance and 10 percent in extrarole performance, and 23 percent of the total variance. It would be interesting to find the best determinant of students performance on the forum. Tables 4 and 5 present the step-wise regression results with the dependent variables forum posting quantity (determined by the number of postings) and posting quality. As shown in the tables, the best determinant of a students performance on the forum, both quantity and quality, was advice network. Advice network variables could explain 20 percent of the variance in posting-quantity performance, and 34 percent in postingquality performance. JALN Volume 7, Issue 3 September 2003 101 V. DISCUSSION It is interesting that while e-learning, distance learning, and asynchronous learning have a great impact on education systems globally, the traditional classroom pedagogy has not been replaced by these new learning modes. Instead, more and more teachers have explored Web-based applications by providing discussion forums as extension to, rather than replacement for, conventional teaching. One plausible

reason is as follows. As an important component of learning, interpersonal relationship may foster the exchange of information and knowledge, or may enhance learning motivations. Such a role could not be easily replaced by only computer technology. Even for pure online learning, exchange of information and social support with others may enhance student performance and satisfaction [21, 37]. For example, Rafaeli and Sudweeks [38] found that online conversations are more social in nature and that interactive messages seem to be humorous, contain more self-disclosure, display a higher preference for agreement, and contain many first-person plural pronouns. This indicates that interpersonal interaction plays an important role in online learning. The relationship between network structure and learning has been investigated since the inception of sociometry decades ago [39]. However, few researchers have examined the effects of network structure on learning achievement or job performance [40]. This can be explained by the fact that complex network indices were developed in late 70s to 90s, and the calculation of these indices requires the use of computers. The explosive use of the Internet has made CMC a hot research topic, and modern social network analysis is widely known and exploited nowadays [41]. The empirical study demonstrated that network structure is related to student performance both in the classroom and on the Web-based forum. The relationship between network structure and student performance might be reciprocal, that is, there might be no implicit causal relationship behind this relationship. This study further demonstrated that the

three types of network, friendship, advice and adversarial, might be related to student performance both in the class and on the discussion forum. http://nccur.lib.nccu.edu.tw/bitstream/140.119/27390/1/v7n3_yang.pdf

The disadvantages of social networking

by Elizabeth M Young Created on: July 01, 2010 Social networking is the process of finding friends and of managing friendships through the internet. People who wish to meet others on line put up their most compelling and attractive presentations through their profile pages. They join groups and communicate with others by commenting on topics or by introducing topics that hope to encourage discussion. The advantages are endless. A person can protect privacy by putting up fake addresses, birthdates, addresses and symbolic images, making the profile private and for friends only. Privacy is ensured by exercising caution when posting personal and biographical information and photos. The amount of personal data that is made available should be highly customizable, or it is best to find a site that provides better privacy features. The disadvantages are also endless. Social networking sites can sell your personal information to anyone who wants to buy it, including spammers and on line predators. Even if the terms of understanding claim that no personal information will be sold, the site can change its policy at any time. If blogs or other original content is published at a site, the site can take over copyright privileges in unlimited ways. Few writers, artists and musicians are aware of this and forget to read the terms of understanding in order to find out what can happen to their works. True identity is never known unless people meet in person. While it is a myth that, without body language, a person's behavior and personality can never be understood, there is never a way to get a person's complete behavior and personality profile strictly through on line interaction. There are too many people on line and in social networking sites. The tendency is to head for the biggest party, but the biggest party is also the most challenging place for conversation that leads to more understanding and more fruitful interactions. It is daunting and time consuming, but the best way to find people is through the forums and groups. The most dangerous people are the sparky and outgoing personas who want to become an instant best friend to total strangers.

There is too much relentless and suspicious pressure from some who wish to impose their demands for personal information on others. They make one good point, which is that it is creepy to have a person show up in a group or to start inviting people to be friends when they have an emptyor hidden profile. There is a happy medium where limited and safe information can be put up, but there can be far too much manipulation and aggression involved with getting others to give up age, location, real photos and far too much detail about themselves in public profiles. It is sad when a group holds an in-person event or meeting and only some members can travel or pay for a trip to meet everyone. This happens in the best and most well founded groups, but creates a rift between those who have met in real life and those who have to confine their interaction to the group posts. Social networking is a time consuming activity. A person is expected to participate by reading and to commenting on many topics and posts, rather than just skimming and lurking. It takes time to figure out ways to tweak the profile page into a masterpiece of beauty and widgetry. It takes time to find out where the great groups and people are. Once they are found, it takes time to carry on the conversations and to develop the relationships. Even sneaking over to a site for a guilty pleasure: games, can turn into a time consuming group process. The farming, group interactive and other games can become a full time job as others want to borrow this, give that and then to talk about it all. The budding writer who puts the best work up has to tolerate the comments from those who troll through people's blogs and who want to pick fights, carp and criticize or argue for argument's sake. Certain political operatives and volunteers live to attack anything that does not agree with their extremist views. The mentally disturbed and unstable want attention. Worse, people read but do not comment at all. In summary, there are dangers, irritants, untrustworthy processes, such as selling registration information, and there are untrustworthy people who are active in social networking. The savvy social networker takes time to establish solid friendships and memberships in groups, has a skeptical mind, and holds back when prompted to give up too much personal information or to interact with total strangers.

THE NATURE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES AND LOW ACADEMICPERFORMANCES

By: kimberly banquil, et.al Social networking sites as web-basedservices that allow individuals to: (1) construct apublic or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users withwhom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those madeby others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary fromsite to site.For the past years, social networking has been very popular for people worldwide. Socialnetworking is a great form of entertainment. It is like going to a new school, on your first day you have no friends but as days pass you will meet new friends and eventually you ll form groups or circle of friends. At f irst, you don t have much interest in your new school but when you begin to learn and enjoy more about your school, you will be happy to spend much of yourtime in school with your friends, teachers and etc. It is open for all kinds of people, all ages, andall races. A purpose of social networking is we meet people, maybe people we met before likeold classmates or schoolmate or new people from different races and countries, we just havesame interests with.While the term "social network site" is used to describe this phenomenon, the term"social networking sites" also appears in public discourse, and the two terms are often usedinterchangeably. "Networking" emphasizes relationship initiation, often between strangers.While networking is possible on these sites, it is not the primary practice on many of them, nor isit what differentiates them from other forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC).

On many of the large SNSs, participants are not necessarily "networking" or looking tomeet new people; instead, they are primarily communicating with people who are already a partof their extended social network. To emphasize this articulated social network as a criticalorganizing feature of these sites, we label them "social network sites."The main types of social networking services are those which contain category divisions(such as former school-year or classmates), means to connect with friends (usually with selfdescription pages) and a recommendation system linked to trust. Popular methods now combinemany of these, with Facebook widely used worldwide; MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn being themost widely used in North America; Nexopia (mostly in Canada);Bebo, Hi5, StudiVZ (mostlyin Germany), iWiW (mostly in Hungary), Tuenti (mostly inSpain), Decayenne, Tagged, XING; Badoo and Skyrock in parts of Europe; and Friendster, Mixi, Multiply, Orkut, Wretch, Xiaonei and Cyworld in Asia and the PacificIslands and Areapal in India. For teens in this generation, social networking has become sort of an addiction. A teenager has a facebook account. She opens her account daily to check new updates. She spendshours checking new updates until she realizes she has more important things to do like schoolworks she has missed doing because of signing in into a social network service. This is anexample of a teen being addicted to such social networks. To prove social networking can be anaddiction, the researchers made a survey to test whether social networking could be a hindranceto a good performance in school. The survey made got answers that yes, some people are willingto spend more time being online on these social network services than to spend time studyingand working up on school works. This is sad to hear because with all the advantages social networking can give, there are also disadvantages, like this, that can be or give bad effects topeople who use them.

http://www.helium.com/items/1878218-the-disadvantages-of-socialnetworking?page=2

R. Junco,* G. Heiberger & E. Loken http://www.scribd.com/doc/28919575/SOCIAL-NETWORKING-SITES-AFFECTONE%E2%80%99S-ACADEMIC-PERFORMANCE-ADVERSELY *Lock Haven University, Lock Haven, PA 17745, USA South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD 57007, USA The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA

For Students, What Is the Facebook Effect on Grades?

Social media has several effects on academic work some more positive than others. But what is social networkings overall impact on college students performance? According to data gathered from several sources byOnlineEducation.net, Facebook and Twitter are used to great benefit sometimes. Students welcome online engagement and resources; around 75% of student respondents said theyd like to do some online collaboration for class, in fact. Also, social media may have a positive impact on students sense of themselves in the community. Social media-using students were twice as likely as other students to feel well-liked by their peers and to participate in extracurricular activities. And 20% more of Facebook-using students (as compared to students who didnt use Facebook) said they felt connected to their school and community. However, negative effects abound. Students who use Facebook and hit the books simultaneously found their multitasking led to 20% lower grades than those of their more focused peers. Facebook-using students also made less money during school from part-time work, putting in around five hours per week as opposed to 16 hours per week for a typical, unplugged counterpart. Not only do grades and finances suffer, but students might actually end up feeling more depressed or lonely. Almost half of students believe they are sadder than their friends on Facebook, and 25% of college students have shown signs of severe depression in their status updates at one time or another. In a word, the results are inconclusive. But with around 96% of all college students on Facebook, only the most dedicated academics would consider giving up social media for a slightly better GPA. http://mashable.com/2011/04/27/facebook-effect-students/ Abstract Despite the widespread use of social media by students and its increased use by instructors, very little empirical evidence is available concerning the impact of social media use on student learning and engagement. This paper describes our semester-long experimental study to determine if using Twitter the microblogging and social networking platform most amenable to ongoing, public dialogue for educationally relevant purposes can impact college student engagement and grades. A total of 125 students taking a rst year seminar course for pre-health professional majors participated in this study (70 in the experimental group and 55 in the control group). With the experimental group, Twitter was used for various types of academic and co-curricular discussions. Engagement was quantied by using a 19-item scale based on the National Survey of Student Engagement. To assess differences in engagement and grades, we used mixed effects analysis of variance (ANOVA) models, with class sections nested within treatment groups. We also conducted content analyses of samples of Twitter exchanges. The ANOVA results showed that the experimental group had a signicantly greater increase in engagement than the control group, as well as higher semester grade point averages. Analyses

The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and gradesjcal_387 1..14

of Twitter communications showed that students and faculty were both highly engaged in the learning process in ways that transcended traditional classroom activities. This study provides experimental evidence that Twitter can be used as an educational tool to help engage students and to mobilize faculty into a more active and participatory role. Social media and student engagement While there is little research focusing on the relationship between social media and student engagement in higher education, a number of studies have found relationships between technology use and engagement. For instance, King and Robinson (2009) found that college

media and engagement and have found relationships between time spent on social media and student engagement as described by Astin (1984), and measured through single survey items. Heiberger and Harper (2008) conducted a study of 377 undergraduate students at a Midwestern institution, while the HERI (HERI 2007) used the Your First College Year survey to collect data from over 31 000 students at 114 colleges and universities. Both the Heiberger and Harper (2008) and HERI (2007) studies found a positive correlation between social networking website use and college student engagement. For instance, a higher percentage

students who used electronic voting systems reported of high users of social networking websites participated they were more likely to answer questions in their math in and spent more time in campus organizations than low course. Annetta et al. (2009) observed that students users. Additionally, more of the high users reported that who played an educational game designed to teach they interacted daily (in the real world) with close genetics concepts were more engaged in their work friends and felt strong connections to them (HERI than a control group. In a study using data from the 2007). National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), Chen http://blog.reyjunco.com/pdf/JuncoHeibergerLokenTwitterEngagementGrades.pdf et al. (2010) found signicant correlations between the use of educational technology and student engagement. While these studies have been important contributions to the research on technology engagement, 2 R. Junco et al. 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltdthey have been limited by either their measurement of engagement (single variables) or their scope (cross-sectional). Two recent studies have focused specically on social

Social Networking and Student Performance

Social Networking sites are currently the most popular online activity. With the number of users on Facebook surpassing 500 million the impact of social networking sites on society is beginning to attract many peoples attention. As a college student at the University of California Berkeley it is not hard ponder the negative effects that social networking sites like Facebook might have on student performance. Every week undergraduates spend multiple hours on Facebook, from updating their status to posting a funny picture they took from last night. But how do they find the time on top of the growing responsibilities of college. Well, the truth is they dont. Instead of studying for an up and coming exam or completing their necessary

readings, many students become entranced by the continuously updating News Feed as well as by the many other features Facebook has to offer. It is not uncommon to be in a large class lecture and see ten or so people in front of you on their laptops looking at their Facebook profiles; it can be quite distracting sometimes. This addiction has forced some to put limits on their Facebook usage. It is amazing what students will do in order to prevent themselves from going on time draining websites like Facebook. A roommate of mine recently downloaded an app called Self Control. This Mac application allows the user to choose his or her own distracting websites and set a given amount of time, up to one day, for the sites to be blocked. Besides other programs similar to the Self Control app, social network users have also deactivated their accounts or had a friend change their password just to avoid the increasing temptations of Facebook. But to what extent do these methods actually prevent the user from accessing Facebook? The Self Control app may prevent you my logging on via a computer, but in todays technological world it is not uncommon for a student to have a phone with access to the web. Not only have students felt the immediate effects of Facebook, but many companies have also seen productivity go down as a result of employees spending time on networking sites. In the United Kingdom, an employment website polled a group of employees and found that 6% spent more than an hour on social networking sites every day. Now at first I thought that this was an insignificant amount, but according to MyJobGroup.co.uk this small fraction accounts for more than 22 billion dollars worth in lost time. Many businesses have taken an approach to prevent employees from misusing their time by restricting time allowed on Facebook or completely blocking it. This business approach brings up the question of whether universities will limit student access to particular sites in the future. At UC-Berkeley, all dorm residents already have restrictions on total bandwidth, limiting the amount of data uploaded or downloaded from the internet. Cals internet usage limitation is mostly related to campus funding, but it is not too far to say that one day colleges may enact rules to prohibit excessive use of Facebook and other networking sites to improve student performance.

networking website. Students average use was 5 hours per week, though some had indicated using it more than 30 hours per week. Many instructors stated that they have negative opinions of social networking sites, mainly due to the distractions they seem to cause in todays computer-rich learning environment, according to the panelists. The presenters extended this concern beyond distraction, arguing that the sheer number of students using social networking sites has impacted interpersonal communication and should not be ignored.

The presentation was divided into three main sections: identity management, multicultural interaction, and paralinguistic language in online social networking. The first section displayed the results of another survey of 44 college students related to their online social networking practices/experiences, information management, and deception. It was shown that, at least among college students, Facebook users outnumbered users of the leading social networking site MySpace by 30%. Whatever the host, the main reasons for using such sites were to keep in touch with friends and meet people, according to the presenters research. As for information control, most respondents indicated they managed the amount of personal information they posted and 75% of respondents were familiar with privacy control options. Most also reported that they would just omit, rather than manipulate, their personal details.

Social Networking II: How Online Socializing Alters Student Approaches to Communication, Identity, and Writing
by Zach Pitts

The session leaders provided a chart showing that North America and Europe, while comprising only 16-17% of the worlds population, account for nearly half of all Internet use. While the adoption of the internet has been slower in other regions, the internet has still created bridges between different cultures throughout the world. Online social networking has made distance a much smaller factor in the decision to communicate,

This session dealt with the use of online social networking among college students and its implications for teaching and classroom activities. According to a survey of 100

but with this increased communication between cultures has come increased miscommunication.

university students conducted by the session leadersCatherine Hooper, Oleksandr Komarenko and Deeba Rahmen, 72% of respondents reported maintaining a social

The presenters then focused on paralanguage - characteristics of speech that deal with not what is said but how it is said, including pitch, intonation, and body language and facial expressions. Most of these paralinguistic features of speech are lost in online communication. As a result, a whole new type of speech has been created by social networking users to represent emotions. Much like actual speech among students, such online conversation is very informal and grammatically incorrect.

July 16, 2010 A new study has found that time spent on social networking sites has no effect on academic performance. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the study, which was conducted by researchers at Northwestern University, included responses from about 1,000 freshmen at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Results of the study appear in the latest issue of Information, Communication & Society. "You could go on [social networking sites] and waste your time," said Eszter Hargittai, associate professor of communication studies and sociology at Northwestern, who was quoted by the Chronicle. "On the other hand, you can connect with your classmates, get information about homework assignments, get to know people better, and feel more comfortable engaging with them on academic matters." According to arstechnica.com, the study found that gender, ethnic background and parent education level were far more likely to affect GPA than social networking usage: Female students tended to have higher grades than males, and white students had higher grades than non-Hispanic African-American students. Moreover, students whose parents graduated from college had higher grade-point averages than those whose parents earned high school diplomas or less. "The most prevalent findings. . .are the persisting differences between respondents with different demographic backgrounds," the report noted. In fact, the study found that in certain cases, increased Internet use had a positive effect on GPAs. "The positive relationship between web-use skills and GPA may illustrate that students who have better online skills can draw on their Internet savvy to aid in their schoolwork," wrote the researchers, which was quoted by arstechnica.com.

So taking all of these aspects into consideration, how might instructors utilize online social networking into lesson plans? The presenters offered several ideas on how to implement students copious use of online socializing into an educational setting. Having professors create their own profiles to communicate with students and offer examples of professional internet personae is one idea. Another idea is to develop an exercise to educate students on the importance of audience analysis and disclosure of potentially harmful personal information on the internet. Taking advantage of the cultural diversity of online social networks to locate and interview someone of a different ethnicity would also be appropriate. Sites like MySpace and Facebook can be implemented into classroom use in many ways, limited only by the instructors creativity and a willingness to recognize the impact online social networking has had on students and to embrace it.

Study Says Social Networking Does Not Affect GPA

A similar study conducted by the University of New Hampshire and published last December drew essentially the same conclusions. Students at the UNH Whittemore School of Business polled 1,127 UNH students and found that there was no connection between social media usage and grades. "The study indicates that social media is being integrated with rather than interfering with students' academic lives," said UNH professor Chuck Martin, whose marketing research class conducted the UNH study, and who was quoted by Psych Central. "College students have grown up with social networks, and the study shows they are now simply part of how students interact with each other with no apparent impact on grades."

http://www.braintrack.com/college-and-work-news/articles/studysays-social-networking-does-not-affect-gpa-10071601