Study: Facebook not a scholastic detriment

EVANSTON, Ill., May 7 (UPI) -- An associate professor at Northwestern University near Chicago says a study has found no correlation between Facebook use and academic achievement.

Communications studies Associate Professor Eszter Hargittai, who is also a fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, said his study failed to support Ohio State University researchers' findings, Northwestern University said in a news release Thursday.

The Ohio State study found use of Facebook, a social networking Web site, was related to declining scholastic achievement.

"We found no evidence of Facebook use correlating with lower academic achievement," said Hargittai, who tried to find similar results to the Ohio State's preliminary study.

Hargittai's "Facebook and Academic Performance: Reconciling a Media Sensation with Data" study with Stafford University doctoral student Josh Pasek was based in part on data gathered from more than 1,000 University of Illinois-Chicago undergraduates.

Also factored into the study were nationally representative samples of American youth aged 14 to 23. The samples were cross sectional and longitudinal in nature.

The "Media Sensation" researchers analyzed the three data sets but found no significant negative relationship between Facebook use and grade point averages.