Social networking sites and cognitive abilities: Do they make you smarter?
I have to admit that the catchy title of this study is what made me read it. There is an ongoing debate in the realm of education about the role of social media and student outcomes and behaviors. Most say it affects students negatively. Even this study mentions a few research papers that draw negative conclusions between spending time on Facebook and their GPA (Junco, 2001; Kirscher & Kirpinsky, 2010). But there is no research beyond the GPA correlation. Besides, many factors contribute to lower GPA, like socioeconomic, occupation, parents education level, income, whether they have children, etc. (Jeynes, 2002; McNeal, 2001). But this is one of the few studies that explore direct effects of social media on cognition. This particular research found that students “who used Facebook for more than a year had higher scores on tests of verbal ability, working memory, and spelling compared students who used Facebook for a shorter time” (Alloway et al., 2013).
In their research, the authors chose to examine two social networking sites (SNS), YouTube and Facebook and how they affect the process of cognition in adolescence. The reason they chose the adolescent group is that the teenage brain is highly impressionable and pliable and can set itself up for increased focused learning (Alloway et al., 2013). They went into further detail about how many activities that students participate in becoming fully ingrained and Allow, Horton, and Alloway (2013) see it forbearing the future learning. I found it to be an interesting conclusion as it goes into the scientific explanation of how the brain works at different stages of human development. It made sense that during formative years the brain as still forming connections for future cognitive abilities.
Another interesting fact that the authors highlighted in their paper is how we form social connections. According to them the social interaction online tends to mimic that of social relationships built in real life (Alloway et al., 2013). They further explain the reason why they chose Facebook and YouTube as the two SNS to explore in their research. They suggested that “a key difference between Facebook and YouTube is that while the former is based on personal connections, the latter is driven by connections based on commonalities or shared interests” (Alloway et al., 2013). I would go further and suggest that Facebook connections are a direct effect of in-person social connection that then leads to online “following” whereas YouTube social bond tends to be with people who you do not know in real life. And even further, YouTube is mostly based on passive receiving of information, watching videos by others and rarely commenting or posting your own online, but Facebook is more of the two-way communication and has more opportunities for actual interaction by posting comments on other’s status.
The method for the study was an interesting one as well. The authors chose 104 students aged between 15 and 19 years old based on academic tests and a number of children in need of free school meals. I found this chosen demographic being an interesting one. I think (although the authors did not state it clearly) the authors choose the sample group so it had a well-rounded representation of children with different backgrounds. Students then were tested on two separate occasions in verbal ability, working memory, learning outcomes, social connectedness scale. Students also had to take social media questionnaire self-reporting how much time they have spent on Facebook and YouTube and what kind of activities they performed on these social media sites, namely playing games, taking quizzes, commenting on other people’s status, posting and watching videos (Alloway et al., 2013). Although the self-reporting could potentially bring some degree of bias, I thought the questions were well-rounded and covered all potential social media uses. The tests that were administered were standardized based on Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence, Automated Working Memory Assessment, and Social Connectedness scale, Wechsler Objective Reading Dimensions — none of which I am familiar with. I also thought that the use of standardized test does not necessarily produce most accurate results as everyone learns differently and at a different pace. I am not sure the authors took it into account.
The results of the self-reported questionnaire showed that 85% of students used Facebook for four months or longer and 99% were regular YouTube users. Taking these statistics into account their funding showed that high Facebook users scored better in the standardized tests compare to students who did not use Facebook regularly (Alloway et al., 2013). Based on the results the authors concluded that verbal abilities could be predicted by one activity on Facebook which was checking and commenting on the friends status. However, none of the YouTube activities affected the prediction of standardized testing scores. I found this results although interesting, not at all surprising regarding differences between Facebook and YouTube. Facebook mostly consists of people that are also friends in the real world, thus checking and commenting on each other status is more natural whereas YouTube population are people who students are unfamiliar with (strangers) which implies a lesser social connection. Another difference between the two social platforms is that Facebook is a more active environment where students interact with the content, and each other and YouTube is more of the passive environment where students mostly watch videos. The authors explored the difference in these settings in their research as well, but the results were surprising. Alloway, Horton, and Alloway (2013) found no difference in the impact on working memory test between passive and active participation in Facebook as well as YouTube. Additionally, they found that Facebook affects positively verbal ability, working memory and spelling but not social connectedness (another surprise).
Another interesting fact about this paper is how the authors connected the high working memory tests in Facebook long-time users and actual cognitive process that takes place in the developing brain. Their explanation of high scores was that the process of posting and reading on Facebook is tied directly to the similarity in Facebook activities to the actual task of working memory. The researchers state that, “when the individual logs into Facebook account they are presented with a plethora of information, they must take in the information, process it, and manipulate it to determine if it’s of interest to them, and then execute an action based on that assessment” (Alloway et al., 2013). This tie to actual cognitive brain process is interesting one. I would not have made the same connection. Part of me thinks it’s a bit of the stretch as we perform similar tasks on daily bases regardless if we use Facebook or not. Shopping would be a good example of this process: there is a plethora of information (different choices of brand) and decision making in place (which one to buy according to personal preferences or food labels along with making connections about healthy lifestyles, budgets, etc).
In conclusion, it was an exciting research full of interesting facts and findings. I find the fact that the duration but not the frequency of engaging with Facebook is positively affecting student cognitive ability truthfully fascinating. In line with Cognitivism theory, I always thought that Facebook has a too much extraneous load in the form of ads, promotions, and links to other resources interspersed with status posts for it to positively affect the cognitive abilities. But maybe high school students are so used to social media that they have an ability to tune out the distractions. It would be interesting to see any follow-up research on social media specifically in relation to cognitive abilities.
References:
Alloway, T. P., Horton, J., & Alloway, R. G. (2013). Social networking sites and cognitive abilities: Do they make you smarter? Computers and Education, 63, 10–16. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2012.10.030
Junco, R. (2011). Too much face and not enough books: the relationship between multiple indices of Facebook use and academic performance. Computers and Human Behavior.
Kirscher, P. A., & Kirpinski, A. C.(2010). Facebook and Academic performance. Computers and Human Behavior, 26, 1237-1245.