IPPN

Published: 08 February 2011

Many parents are frustrated about the amount of time their teenagers spend on Facebook, and some teachers consider it to be the greatest threat to established study patterns in a generation – and research is proving them right

THINK OF the ways you could spend seven hours a week. Perfecting a new language, maybe learning an instrument – or how about exchanging sound bytes and pictures with people you see all day anyway?

Parents and teachers are becoming increasingly frustrated with the amount of time that students are spending on Facebook. The social networking site has become a universal, round-the-clock presence on laptops and smartphones in classrooms and libraries, studies and bedrooms. What, they are asking, is the impact of all this on homework and concentration?

“Facebook has become an obsession among students,” says John Cronin, principal of Castleknock Community College in Dublin. “They can’t go anywhere or do anything without going and sharing the details online. It must be having an impact on study. It’s like having 15 of your friends in your bedroom with you, chatting away while you try and do your homework.”

Irish second and third level students are spending more and more time on the site. The school students we interviewed confessed to spending between 2 and 8 hours a week on Facebook and a recent UPC study conducted in colleges around the country found that 95 per cent were on Facebook with almost half saying they spend between six and 10 hours on the site each week.

 

Full Story: www.irishtimes.com