Of bad journalism

This Straits Times hoohaa called Ms. Tham is really something.

Dimwits on Facebook?
(accessible at http://blogs.straitstimes.com/2009/4/15/dimwits)


"A new study has shown that college students who use the social network have significantly lower grade-point averages (GPAs) than those who do not, according to Time.com. The survey of 219 undergraduate and graduate students was done by doctoral candidate Aryn Karpinski of Ohio State University and Adam Duberstein of Ohio Dominican University. They found that GPAs of Facebook users typically ranged one grade point lower than those of non-users. For instance, users' grades range from 3.0 to 3.5 compared with a 3.5 to 4.0 range for non-Facebook users. "

Sometimes I find it ironic that while I'm picking up all the right skills to write journalistic articles, you have such people out there who are simply wrecking the reputation of that career path. I mean, you can walk stark naked at Holland V or run down Orchard Road in a bikini to garner attention, but this is simply poor job ethics. Yes it's a blog but, no, it's not a place for you to rant about how disconnected you are from the outside world. By questioning the intelligence of millions of Facebook users should be the last thing to do, especially if you decide to sit at the bottom of the well. If you have University of Colorado fraternities using FB to recruit members (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1891277,00.html), are you going to imply that these people are destined to have low intelligence? If the University of Melbourne says that FB at work makes better employees (http://uk.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUKTRE5310ZH20090402?rpc=401), are you going to say that these companies are recruiting dumb people? Are you going to dismiss New York University's students as 'dimwits' as well (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1889298,00.html?iid=sphere-inline-bottom)?

For the record, although my grades are just average, I do see alot of A-lister friends who are on the Dean's list getting obsessed with FB games, and they're still sitting pretty on the top of the league. Of course I'm not condemning the research results, because I've read OTHER articles that carry such views as well. But isn't it too much to rant about it? What about YOUR GPA?

And the utmost annoying thing? Most of the articles I quoted above are from the TIME.com website. Hello?! You call yourself a reporter and write reports like a 3-year-old biased thumb-sucker without doing other forms of research? Was that what your journalism course taught you? Or are you simply drying out of ideas, and HAD to roil readers' emotions by writing such stuff?

Tsktsk.