Is online education and the increasing use of social media in education to blame for lower student scores? The short answer is no–most studies show that it is the multitasking encouraged by the use of multiple educational formats that creates problems for today’s students.
An increasingly large amount of educational research shows that in ditching traditional classrooms in favor of online learning and social media, we are throwing out the baby with the bathwater and students are losing essential skills even while developing new ones. For example, a new study claims that student use of Facebook is causing lower grades. According to researchers Paul A. Kirschnera and Aryn C. Karpinskib, of 219 students age 19-54, those who used Facebook had an average GPA of 3.06, while those who did not use the site averaged 3.82. That’s a significant loss, because it means that Facebook users have a B average, while those who do not use the site are earning A and A- grades. For some students, this difference can mean the loss of a scholarship, a graduate school acceptance, or even a job.
And, a Fall 2011 study in the United Kingdom found that “More than nine out of ten British students are distracted by Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites at least once an hour.” USA Today claims that 91% of students now text in class (Note: Not all professors allow this. I certainly don’t!)
Do We Quit Facebook?
The good news is that most people agree that it is not Facebook itself that causes the problem. We don’t have to surrender our Facebook profiles and give up all the benefits that social media has given us, such as renewing old acquaintances, catching up on the news, etc. Rather, the culture of multitasking engendered by new technology is the culprit— and, specifically, the belief students have that they can multi-task effectively. Dr. Kirschnera said, “the problem is that most people have Facebook or other social networking sites, their e-mails and maybe instant messaging constantly running in the background while they are carrying out other tasks. Our study, and other previous work, suggests that while people may think constant task-switching allows them to get more done in less time, the reality is it extends the amount of time needed to carry out tasks and leads to more mistakes.”
Frontline: Digital Nation
These recent results seem to support the argument presented in Frontline: Digital Nation, a PBS special that aired in 2010 that asserted that digital multitasking—not online education or social media per se—was “dumbing down the world.” In the documentary, several students and professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) commented on the way that education has changed in recent years. Lauren, an MIT undergraduate, said,
“I feel like the professors here do have to accept that we can multitask very well and that we do at all times. And so if they try, and you know, restrict us from doing it, it’s almost unfair because we are completely capable, moving in between lecture and other things and just keeping track of the many things that are going on in our lives.”
This assertion was countered by Professor Clifford Nass, a professor at Stanford University who has studied the effects of multitasking. He said,
“Virtually all multitaskers think they are brilliant at multitasking. And one of the big discoveries is, You know what? You’re really lousy at it! It turns out multitaskers are terrible at every aspect of multitasking. They get distracted constantly. Their memory is very disorganized. Recent work we’ve done suggests they’re worse at analytic reasoning. We worry that it may be creating people who are unable to think well and clearly.”
This seems to be borne out by professors at MIT who teach students like Lauren. David Jones, an Associate Professor of the History of Technology and Culture, reported that in his experience as an educator,
“There are two sorts of things you can test students about. You can test how well they’re paying attention in lecture and you can test how well they’re absorbing information from readings that you assign. And I don’t think they’re doing either of those things well…I just gave my class a midterm, and I was really asking obvious questions that, had they been attending carefully in lecture and had they been doing the readings carefully, everyone should have gotten 100 percent on this exam. And the mean score was probably about a 75 percent. It’s not that the students are dumb, it’s not that they’re not trying, I think they’re trying in a way that’s not as effective as it could be because they’re distracted by everything else.”
Why is Multitasking Harmful to Students?
Professor Sherry Turkle at MIT believes that multitasking is harmful to the development of sustained critical thinking. In the Frontline documentary, she said,
“I teach at MIT. I teach the most brilliant students in the world. But they have done themselves a disservice by drinking the Kool-Aid and believing that a multitasking learning environment will serve their best purposes. There really are important things you cannot think about unless it’s still and you’re only thinking about one thing at a time. There are just some things that are not amenable to being thought about in conjunction with 15 other things.”
To many educators, the most important problem created by a culture of multitasking is the loss of critical thinking skills. Researchers Jennifer Endres and Danielle Tisinger of the University of Minnesota report that, “unfortunately, as new technologies emerge, many on our campuses see a decline in the educational outcomes of student learning. Quick access to information can lead to a lack of critical thinking about sources and quality of information, as well as an inability to ‘mine for data;’ many students will likely click one or two pages into a Website, but no further.” This means that in addition to creating concentration problems, students who multitask too much develop a tendency toward skimming rather than in-depth reading and analysis. This, more than anything, will hurt grades and the development of the intellect.
What Can Be Done?
While everyone agrees that there’s no stopping the development of multiple educational and technological formats, including social media—and that there would be a number of negatives should that happen—there are some ways to make sure that students can use new online educational forms and social media and still continue to develop the intellectual skills they need to succeed in and interact with the world:
- Schools and faculty can work to ensure that online education and social media uses in education include appropriate assignments for the development of academic and intellectual skills. An example of this is yesterday’s announcement that the higher education service Academic Partnerships has partnered with the nonprofit academic standards organization Quality Matters to help faculty develop more effective online courses.
- Students can learn to compartmentalize their social time and their work time a little more. Do one thing at a time! This means using social mediaduring free time or, if it is required in class, only in ways related to the assignment. Don’t worry about your friends—if they are true friends, they will understand that you’ve chosen to make academics your priority for an hour or two. Students can also check out this helpful post on CampusTalkBlog for more tips on how to minimize distractions and study more effectively.
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