Slashdot has syndicated a story about some research claiming that Facebook use is correlated with getting worse grades in college. Apparently:

…Facebook user GPAs were in the 3.0 to 3.5 range on average, compared to 3.5 to 4.0 for non-users. Facebook users also studied anywhere from one to five hours per week, compared to non-users who studied 11 to 15 or more hours per week.

If this seems fishy to you, you're not alone. At least the author of the press piece communicates the researcher's note that correlation isn't causation. The researcher herself (a doctoral student from Ohio State named Aryn Karpinski) seems convinced what she's seeing is an unobserved variable problem. I think that's likely to be true, but I'd also guess there's a huge bias in this type of self-report data. I'm guessing that, on average, college students use Facebook about the same regardless of their GPA. But – and this is a big but – if you're a person who's getting good grades, you probably also carry around a set of social norms about what you should be doing with your time. So when someone asks you how much time you spend on a distraction you're likely to under-report your time on Facebook, and over-report the time you spend studying. That would be especially true for something like Facebook, which increasingly carries a stigma as a frivolous time-sink.

In fairness, the researcher in this case seems to have worked as hard as possible to communicate her findings, and had her story twisted through the popular press. Blogger Ted Shelton wrote a fairly snarky piece about her (OSU Researcher Discovers Dorks), to which she responded directly, and Ted posted the response (and an apology):

The main thing to remember is that this research is correlational, which the media does not seem to understand (no surprise). I am not saying that Facebook CAUSES poor academic performance. I am saying that the research shows that there is a RELATIONSHIP between Facebook use and academic performance. There are a host of third variables that need to be examined that are potentially influencing this relationship such as personality, work, extracurricular involvement, other distractions, etc. Also, I'm sure that if it wasn't Facebook it would be another distraction. See how they twisted my words? Fun fun…