Is Facebook Turning You Into a Troglodyte?

In addition to an increased risk of needing Lasik surgery and an unnatural LCD-like glow to your complexion, excessive time on Facebook may be keeping you from your family and friends and making you fail your classes.

Anecdotal evidence is showing an uptick in the number of people reporting their Facebook use conflicting with their social life. Mothers are ignoring their children to friend old flames. Young people are increasingly confusing their fictive, electronic friendships with offline face-to-face friendships.

A study from Ohio State University has noted Facebook users average GPAs between 3.0 and 3.5 while non-users average between 3.5 and 4.0. Weekly study time for Facebook users can be a third of the time for non-Facebook users. Curiously, math and science students report more time spent on Facebook than their counterparts in the humanities.

One of the study’s researchers Aryn Karpinski told Big Think that respondents did nod toward Facebook’s potential as an acedmic tool when they used it to form study groups and encorage their peers academically.

There is no clinical prescription for users reporting problems from social network use but a growing trend of Christ-like internet deprivation periods is growing in popularity. A period spent offline has been reported to leave users refreshed and refocused on their work and social lives.