academic

Apparently using social networks doesn’t cause students to suffer academically, and in fact, can eliminate the different in American GPA scores between students whose parents had differing levels of higher education, and for some demographics it had a positive relationship.

Researchers from Northwestern University have acknowledged that students will distract themselves and waste time but the positive effects outweigh the negativity for some, or at least cancel out for others. (h/t Ars Technica).

Information Hydrant image by Will Lion on Flickr (CC Licence)

There’s been a lot of debate about the effects of the internet, particularly in the debate between Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus and Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows – does the internet enable productive spare time, or rewire our brains to skim read without any proper thought (possibly the most lightweight and succinct summation!).

My own thoughts can be summed up in two bullet points:

• The internet is the most amazingly comprehensive, searchable and shareable source of information that has ever existed, enabling the largest ever number of people to create, compile, curate and spread information
• It’s all about how it’s used in conjunction with the other sources of information available from print to radio to television, and the outcomes it produces.

The internet is not inherently anything, despite the fact it was based on openness and sharing, or the fact it can be used for misinformation, criminal activity or censorship.

Until computers and networks become completely sentient, then it’s the human interaction with the internet which shapes what it can do, and what it becomes.

And as long as individuals, groups and companies continue to provide useful and valuable information for use by others, the net effects for those who learn the skills to use the internet effectively will be positive – social networking is an ever-more important part of that as it encompasses interaction, organisation and knowledge-sharing.