It’s no question that Facebook can be distracting and detrimental to your studies. While back in the day, video games were the main way students procrastinated with studies, now the Internet provides additional mediums of entertainment.  Everything from YouTube, to Netflix, Hulu, mobile Apps, Instagram, Pinterest, blogs, and much more.

According to a new study that involved 300 middle school, high school and college students, most of their distractions came from technology, often in the form of notifications.

What exactly does that mean?

To cite the study, “First, these students were only able to focus and stay on task for an average of three minutes at a time and nearly all of their distractions came from technology.”  three whole minutes!

“Not surprisingly those who stayed on task longer and had study strategies were better students. The worst students were those who consumed more media each day and had a preference for working on several tasks at the same time and switching back and forth between them.”

You can read about the full study here:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rewired-the-psychology-technology/201204/attention-alert-study-distraction-reveals-some-surpris

So what’s that mean?  Maybe around finals time it wouldn’t hurt to disable facebook or install internet blocking applications that disable access to entertainment oriented web sites..

Good luck on finals and we hope to see you at graduation! Also if you’re graduating in May and have not already ordered your graduation sashes, order soon to save on shipping!