Michael Interdonato LA 101H Use Facebook Less Often Attention 1. Facebook: We all use it.

They had 845 million monthly active users in the world at the end of December 2011 (Fact Sheet). My guess would be that about 25 of those are probably in this room. So what? Right? 2. Thesis: Facebook has a strong negative effect on our productivity, specifically of college students. Need (Displayed in PowerPoint on charts and tables) 1. Time Spent on Facebook a. A study by the Nielson Company revealed how much time the average American Facebook user spends on Facebook (Parr). i. This number was around 7 hours per month or 14 minutes per day. ii. You may say that that isnt bad at all, however this number includes every single Facebook user in America. iii. This can be deceiving in that when focusing on college students, this number will go up quite a bit. b. Rey Junco, a professor at Lock Haven University who got his masters in clinical psychology from Penn State and his doctorate in education in counselor education from Penn State, did a study on how often the students at the university used Facebook (Junco, The relationship). i. In the fall of 2010, the survey was sent out to total population of the school and slightly less than half of them responded. ii. Students spent 101.09 minutes per day on Facebook on average. 2. Facebook Correlations to GPA a. Ohio State survey of 219 students (Campbell). i. 148 had Facebook ii. Facebook users average GPA was between 3.0 and 3.5 while non-Facebook users average GPA was between 3.5 and 4.0 b. A survey was sent to UNC students which showed the following (The Relationship): i. The study showed that students that regularly used Facebook during two of their classes had an average GPA range of 2.833 to 3.233. ii. Students that regularly used Facebook during one of their classes had an average GPA range of 3.0 to 3.4. Students that did not use Facebook during their classes had an average GPA range of 3.125 to 3.511. c. Another study by Rey Junco detailed the correlation between Facebook use and GPA (Junco, Too much). i. The study showed that by spending one more standard deviation of time on Facebook which in this case was 93 minutes, your GPA would be 0.123 points lower than the average. Satisfaction 1. There are so many alternatives that you should focus your time on. a. Spend time on homework or studying that you wouldnt have otherwise. b. Read a book.

c. Exercise. 2. The easiest alternative: sleep a. Though it may sound ridiculous, sleep is good for you. Especially for us college students who may not get enough sleep. b. Instead of going on Facebook at night before going to bed, just go to bed. Save that 15, 20, or 30 minutes and just rest. c. Im basically asking you to do NOTHING. 3. There is no need to severely change your lifestyle and means of social interaction by completely eliminating Facebook from your life. a. Pick a day of the week and dont go on Facebook at all for that day every week. My recommendation would be Sunday because nobody really does much on in terms of going out on Sundays. b. Add-ons and extensions on web browsers allow you to block websites for specific periods of time so you can block Facebook to remind you that you should spend your time doing something else. c. Assuming Juncos study is somewhat representative of college students, you could save over an hour and half of your life each week by doing this. 4. If you are truly addicted to Facebook and could not fathom doing any of the things that I have mentioned, try to do them anyway for this reason: a. When you logon to Facebook after restraining from using it for a day, you very well may have more notifications and friend requests than usual. Visualization 1. If you act on this, you can potentially see an increase in your GPA a. Obviously your GPA will not automatically go up. The idea is that you will spend that time doing other things. b. Doing homework/studying will help with your grades, thereby potentially decreasing your stress level c. Reading a book will stimulate your mind. It also keeps your mind engaged with something other than work. 2. Youll have a better lifestyle if you choose to spend the extra time sleeping. I cant tell you how many times Ive woken up in the morning wishing I had gone to bed earlier and gotten more rest. 3. If you dont act, you could wind up with Facebook Addiction Disorder; yes it is a real thing (Summers). a. American psychologists have been using the phrase to describe the immense obsession that some have to Facebook. b. People can be so bad that they need to go on Facebook to feel satisfied with their day. i. If you think this may be you, take my advice while you still can. c. It has been reported that 350 million people have FAD. Action 1. 2. 3. 4.

This Sunday, dont logon to Facebook at all. Just try it out. Get to sleep early. Study for finals for a little bit. Feel rested and give yourself the ability to concentrate more so in class. If this is honestly that hard for you, do it for the sake of feeling accomplished at the end of the day. If nothing else, a little bit of pride can go a long way.

Works Cited Campbell, Emma. "Study Finds Facebook Lowers College Students' GPAs." The Woods. Saint Mary-ofthe-Woods College, 19 Jan. 2011. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. <http://thewoodsnewspaper.com/archives/417>. "Fact Sheet." Facebook. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. <http://newsroom.fb.com/content/default.aspx?NewsAreaId=22>. Junco, R. (2012). The relationship between frequency of Facebook use, participation in Facebook activities, and student engagement. Computer & Education, 58(1), 162-171. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2011.08.004 Junco, R. (2012). Too much face and not enough books: The relationship between multiple indices of Facebook use and academic performance. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(1), 187-198. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2011.08.026 Parr, Ben. "Facebook Is The Web's Ultimate Timesink [Stats]." Mashable. 16 Feb. 2010. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. <http://mashable.com/2010/02/16/facebook-nielsen-stats/>. Summers, Amy. "Facebook Addiction Disorder - The 6 Symptoms of F.A.D." SocialTimes. 02 May 2011. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. <http://socialtimes.com/facebook-addiction-disorder-the-6-symptoms-of-fa-d_b60403>. "The Relationship Between Facebook Use and Grade Point Average." Yahoo! 07 July 2009. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. <http://voices.yahoo.com/the-relationship-between-facebook-3718704.html?cat=15>.