OMG : Ur dumb and on Facebook?

This is a month old bit about how an OSU study posits that grades and heavy Facebook usage are tied:

•The newer research, published this week in an online journal First Monday, found no "robust negative relationship between Facebook use and grades. Indeed. If anything, Facebook use is more common among individuals with higher grades." Northwestern University professor Eszter Hargittai, Stanford doctoral candidate Josh Pasek and eian more, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, analyzed three existing data sets, including a sample of more than 1,000 undergraduates from the University of Illinois-Chicago and other data involving teens and young adults.

•The earlier research was led by Ohio State University graduate student Aryn Karpinski, and was based on a survey involving 219 students on her campus. It was included in a "poster presentation" at an annual conference of the American Educational Research Association, where scholars can present initial research and seek feedback.

In a statement published in First Monday, the authors of the larger study said they were motivated to "set the record straight" because of the surge of public interest generated by the media. "Our primary criticism of the Karpinski study was not in reference to her results, but rather to the process of alerting the mass media without probability-based sampling, replication or comprehensive peer review."

Karpinski, who says many media outlets overstated her findings, says research is a process of examination, peer review, replication, and many other steps along the way.

"My work was exploratory, is good research practice and it shouldn't be dismissed," she says. "Neither my study nor their study sets any record straight."

I'm sure someone in local media will dig up this old chestnut and do something on a slllow news day.