W6 Q2_Jeong | W6 Q2 | Forum

First of all, Ellison et al. (2007) is more compelling to me in terms of importance. It is very impressive that, in this paper, the authors revealed people with characteristics that were difficult to form social capital offline (e.g., low satisfaction, low self-esteem) can counteract and overcome these barriers in social networking sites, an online environment, through correlation. From this paper, we are able to learn that educational opportunities and equality that have not been addressed by legitimate place-based education or methods may be promoted by utilizing social networking sites as learning tools.
Secondly, I think the arguments and findings of Junco (2011) on the relationship between the time spent on Facebook and changes in GPA do not seem to have a practical impact. As pointed out in the limitations, the author suggests that GPA variables can be representatives of all the academic outcomes and success students may have, throughout the paper; however, this view conflicts with my concept of learning and the indicators of its outcomes. The fact that GPA, which is a very small part of learning, was presented as an indicator of academic success, and even the weak relation between FBtime and the time spent for preparing for class (a variable believed to have a very large impact on desired outcomes) suggests that this paper has very little practical impact.