Texting 'lowers students' grades'

By Nick Collins. Students who spend long periods each day texting fall behind in their studies but reading newspapers could boost their performance, according to a new study. Women in their first year of university spent almost 12 hours a day on media-related activities such as texting, social networking, browsing the internet and watching television. In most cases these activities were linked to lower effort and grades, but reading newspapers and listening to music appeared to improve students' academic performance. Rather than trying to change students' behaviour, professors should attempt to integrate unhelpful social media into academic study, for example by using it to refer students to learning material, experts said. Read more...