MediaShift

Professor Bush                                                                                        Journalism 2

In-Depth 2 Final Draft: Facebook & GPAs

My roommate (who wishes to not be named) sits at his computer daily typing away frantically. Most of the time however he is not doing his homework but is rather on Facebook talking to others about how he still has piles of work to do.

He is not alone. According to a recent study by Ohio State University researcher Aryn Karpinski showed that 68% of college students she surveyed used Facebook and that there is a correlation between Facebook usage and grade point average in both undergraduate and graduate students.

Karpinski’s study found that, out of the 219 Ohio State University students she surveyed, 148 had Facebook accounts. Those who had Facebook accounts had GPAs in the range of 3.0-3.5 and spent one to five hours per week studying. Those who did not have Facebook had 3.5-4.0 GPAs and spent 11 to 15 hours a week studying.

“We can’t say that use of Facebook leads to lower grades and less studying,” said Karpinksi, “but we did find a relationship there. There’s a disconnect between students’ claim that Facebook use doesn’t impact their studies, and our finding showing they had lower grades and spent less time studying.”

Likewise, 79 percent of the students she surveyed that used Facebook claimed that it did not interfere with their academics/studying and that they put school above Facebook as a priority.

When Franklin Pierce students were asked their thoughts about how Facebook affected their academic endeavors, the response was similar to the results of Kaprinski’s study.

“Anytime I pull up Internet Explorer or any other tab on a window I automatically type in facebook.com no matter what,” admits sophomore Kirsten Gallagher, “whether I meant to type in another website to research an assignment or something along those lines, I end up stuck on Facebook forever.”

From the responses received, though small in quantity, students are aware that Facebook is a distraction and could potentially interrupt them during their work and studies, but still opted to use it. Interestingly, one sophomore even admitted that he was trying to write a paper due for a class soon yet he instead decided to respond to my Facebook request for student input.

”It’s the best tool out there for wasting time,” Sussex County Community College student Chris DePue said. ”When I have to do write a research paper and I hit a wall, it’s so easy to lose myself in Facebook. I’ll tell myself ‘Oh 10 more minutes, 15 more’ but that easily turns into a half hour or more.”

However, with media outlets picking up Kaprinski’s findings and converting them into stories, individuals have begun speaking up. Communications department chairperson and professor at Coastal Carolina University Steve Madden said that even the “correlation” drawn between Facebook and student performance in Kaprinski’s research is questionable in an article for The State. “First, it was a small population,” said Madden, “secondly, I think they’re stretching it to say this happens [lower GPAs] because of that [Facebook]. It’s weak at best.”

Internet surfers that use Mozilla Firefox as their web browser can track the amount of times they visit a given site such as Facebook if they are concerned or curious about their usage. Students have admitted to totaling over 1,000 Facebook homepage visits in just over two weeks.

Students know that taking time to interact on Facebook, much like any other activity; can take time away from studying and other things of both an academic and non-academic nature. Joe Ferris, sophomore and the Vice President of the Student Government Association agrees and sees Facebook as being just a part of a larger problem. “It is just yet another thing to distract us in an already chaotic environment which is constantly pulling at our attention from all angles.”

http://projects.propublica.org/recovery/locale/new-hampshire/hillsborough#

Cheshire County (where FPU is located):

http://projects.propublica.org/recovery/locale/new-hampshire/cheshire

By MEGHAN PIERCE
Monadnock Ledger-Transcript Staff February 03. 2009 8:35AM

Things started slowly on Thursdaymorning. Four cans later, they sped up considerably. After a two-hour delay to the start of school, Conant High School senior Seth Pruter watched as his friend drank four cans of the energy drink Amp. A 16-ounce can of Amp contains between 142 to 160 milligrams of caffeine, which means the student consumed around 600 milligrams in a short period of time. It’s the equivalent of about four cups of coffee. “He was just chugging them down,” said Pruter. “At first he was dancing around. … Halfway through Conceptual Physics, he just crashed.” “He’s a really chill kid, too. But whenever he’s on energy drinks, he goes crazy,” he said. His friend slept through the rest of the class, said Pruter, who recounted that each time the teacher looked over, he would nudge his friend. This incident is not isolated and appears to be a part of a national trend. Once the domain of sleepy-eyed adults, more teens are turning to caffeine-fueled energy drinks and old-fashioned coffee to kick-start their day, or to keep them going into the night. Often times, energy drinks are combined with alcohol, creating a cocktail that increased the effects of both the caffeine and the alcohol. A recently released report from University of Massachusetts Medical School found 4,600 caffeine-related calls to the American Association of Poison Control Centers in 2005, the most recent data available. More than half involved people under 19, and 2,345 required treatment in a health care facility. Dr. Richard Church, a doctor involved with the UMass study, said teens are using energy drinks and caffeine pills to stay up to do their homework or to have energy for sports after school. Teens are using the caffeine for energy but also to be able to focus and concentrate, he said. “They figure if one is good two is better.” Caffeine is found naturally in more than 60 plants such as coffee beans, tea leaves, kola nuts and cacao beans and is found in many common foods and beverages such as coffee, tea and chocolate. A cup of coffee or a caffeinated energy drink typically contains about three times more caffeine than a glass of cola. Energy drinks — like Amp, Monster and Red Bull Monster — include a variety of ingredients in different combinations: plant based stimulants like guarana, herbs like ginkgo and ginseng, and amino acids. But the main active ingredient is caffeine. A growing industry In a little over ten years energy drink brands have become a $3.5 billion a year industry. In 2006, more than 30 percent of adolescents reported using energy drinks. Brock Lambert, a Conant High School science teacher, said some students come to school every morning with an energy drink. “That’s their breakfast. That kind of behavior is disconcerting. That’s not what they should be eating for breakfast.” Lambert said there are more energy drinks on the market every year and teens are using them more and more. The drinks are marketed towards young people, he said, and students come to school with a wide range of energy drinks – Monster, Amp, Fuse. Lambert stresses moderation to his students. “Just watch what you put in your body, everything in moderation.” Lambert said he would like to see a lot of education and a little regulation in regards to the energy drinks and what they contain. “I hate to see them hurting their bodies before they are fully grown,” he said. The energy drinks can be purchased almost anywhere. Kevin Duval, a clerk at Little Roy’s in Peterborough, said there is usually an after school rush when high school students come in to purchase the super-caffeinated energy drinks before heading to their after school jobs or activities. He said the energy drinks are also popular when there is an event in town. For example a teen will come in and buy a Red Bull and an Amp, then come back to buy more later in the day. “They come back so wired you wouldn’t believe it,” Duval said. Pruter, 18, of Rindge said he and his friend usually use energy drinks to stay up all night and play video games. “It’s for celebratory purposes. … We buy a huge six-pack of the cheapest stuff we can find at Ocean State Job Lot. It’s called like Black Horse or something. It’s 80 cents per can — its so weird tasting.” A name brand energy drink usually costs $3 and comes in a can or bottle larger than a typical 12-ounce can of soda. That is another reason why Pruter said he drinks the beverages. “There’s still always more in that giant can,” he said. The Food and Drug Administration has limited the caffeine content of soda to 65 mg per 12-ounce container. However, energy drinks are not currently subject to the same regulations. Energy drinks such as Red Bull and SoBE No Fear often contain between 14 and 31 mg of caffeine per 100 milliliters. Although the caffeine content may be similar to coffee; energy drinks are often packaged in significantly higher volumes, resulting in increased caffeine intake. SoBe No Fear contains 141 mg of caffeine in each 16-ounce (473 mL) bottle, the equivalent of 1 and a half cups of brewed coffee, or four cans of regular Coca-Cola. Who is drinking them? Pruter said he doesn’t use caffeine to study. He once used energy drinks, though, to power through an after school job. “Then I crash half way through work,” he said. “I stopped both.” When asked how energy drinks make him feel, Pruter said, “It’s not so much about the feeling that you get from it really, cause usually it feels like a punch in the face when you drink it. But after a while you’re just chugging it down and you’re like, this is so bad for me! This feels awesome!’ It’s almost like you’re doing it because you know it’s bad for you. It’s a rebellious feeling. It’s always fun to joke about how much you’ve drunken.” Nelson Perry, 17, of Peterborough said he also enjoys energy drinks occasionally, before lifting weights or to stay up all night with friends. “Watching movies, hanging around, horsing around, being idiots, making memories.” When asked how energy drinks make him feel, Perry said “You kind of don’t really have a lot of feelings. You’re just kind of like ready to do anything,” he said. Frisco Pucciarello, 17, of Peterborough stopped drinking Red Bull because it made him feel weird. “Six months ago I used to drink them a lot. I kind of treated it as soda.” Pucciarello said energy drinks make him feel hyper. He also learned that nutritionally, the drinks are not great for you. “Nothing’s really in it,” he said. The drinks, however, remain popular with a lot of teens, he said. “Sometimes if you’re out with a bunch of friends and you want to get hyper you can just drink a Red Bull and just go nuts for a while. I think it’s more psychological.” Perry said he also thinks the effect of the drinks is more psychological. “It all depends on your mood because if you don’t want to get really amped, it’s not going to really do anything. But if you believe that it’s going to work. ‘I’m going to get amped up from this.’ I guess that you just get really hyper from it,” Perry said. Mixed with alcohol Another alarming trend is that some teens mix energy drinks such as Red Bull with alcohol, such as vodka and Jagermeister, Lambert said. “As a teacher, I hear about what children do,” he said. Lambert said it is an even more dangerous trend because mixing a stimulant (caffeine) with a depressant (alcohol) can cause respiratory and or heart problems. “I don’t think it’s a good mix,” Lambert said. “It’s not like they cancel each other out. They can case serious health problems.” Perry and Pucciarello said mixing energy drinks with alcohol is popular at some parties. “The bigger the party the more common it is. Because there’ll be more alcohol to mix with it,” Pucciarello said. Church said the mix of caffeine and alcohol leads to risky behavior. “The natural depressant affect of the alcohol isn’t showing up. … It gives them a sense they are not as drunk, so they start drinking more, leading to dangerous behavior.” Teens believe mixing the beverages creates “a faster buzz,” Pucciarello said. “It seems like it gets you drunk faster, and makes the drunk more rambunctious somehow and hyper. In some environments that’s fun. Sometimes it’s just annoying — an obnoxious drunk.” Caffeine culture Despite the concerns of the extreme behavior there is a concern that children overall are consuming more caffeine today than they have in the past and what the possible long term health affects of that could be. Church said it is not known if intense caffeine use has an affect on memory or psychological development of teenagers. ConVal High School student Mara Zravy, 15, of Peterborough said she avoids caffeine because it makes her hyper, but coffee is popular at school. “In the morning everybody has a coffee cup. Mostly it’s the juniors and seniors. I tried to carry around a coffee cup but I crashed,” she said. She added she does not want to get addicted. “Caffeine is a drug, like any other drug.” Homeschooler Ben Blais, 17, of New Ipswich said he drinks four to eight cups of coffee per day. “Coffee is my preferred form of caffeine,” he said. “It makes me feel happy and awake. …Also I am at the point where I’m addicted. So I get headaches if I don’t drink some.” Children are consuming more caffeine said Dr. Jeffery Boxer said. “It’s definitely different now. It’s a mainstay of their drinks.” While he is aware of it Boxer, a pediatrician for the past 30 years, said caffeine use is not something he discusses with a patient unless they are showing symptoms of having had too much. The doctors at Monadnock Regional Pediatrics in Peterborough screen for soda intake, not caffeine per say, he said. In the past few years the push has been to reduce soda intake to prevent tooth decay and childhood obesity, he said. Boxer said he has occasionally seen children with symptoms — heart palpitations, rapid heartbeats, problems sleeping, and nervousness — that could be caused by caffeine intake. “I do periodically tell kids to cut back on the caffeine because I think it might be causing the symptoms,” he said. “It’s not a huge problem, but it is something we are aware of.” While Boxer has heard about chronic caffeine use and abuse of the energy drinks, he said he has not seen it in his practice. “We know it’s happening. It is a concern.” The truth about the energy drinks is that they have a lot of sugar and calories and are low in nutritional value, he said. The large amounts of caffeine can cause dehydration, upset stomach, nervousness, heart palpitations, rapid heart beat, headaches and sleep problems. He also said the drinks often contain unregulated ingredients like herbs and amino acids, which have not been tested for safety or effectiveness. “Kids use them for a quick buzz, but they’re not particularly safe,” The use of energy drinks also creates an addictive cycle, he said. “They are going to be tired the next day and think they need another energy drink.”

]]> http://www.fpujournalism.org/classes/?feed=rss2&p=505 0 http://www.fpujournalism.org/classes/?p=502 http://www.fpujournalism.org/classes/?p=502#comments Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:39:58 +0000 admin http://www.fpujournalism.org/classes/?p=502

09

                                        In-Depth #2- Travel Costs

               Despite the bad weather, research papers, presentations, final projects,

finals, and sub par food at the café, one can sense a buzz in the air around campus.

               Much of the excitement around campus is due to the fact that students have

been in school for 8 months now and are becoming anxious to travel home for the

summer.  One concern among students who will be traveling home is traveling costs.

The cost of traveling can be expensive and many students are affected by these costs.

               Sophomore Sean Carroll, who hails from Highlands Ranch, Colorado,  has

noticed that airline prices have been on the rise since last year.  Carroll said, “I have

noticed the fees rising this year, specifically in baggage fees.”  According to Carroll,

passengers are only allowed to check one bag for free, and every checked bag after

passengers are charged an additional twenty-five dollars.  He went on to say that every

bag that weight over fifty pounds was also subject to a twenty-five dollar charge.  Carroll

said, “In previous years I was able to check up to three bags for free and after the third

bag I was charged the twenty-five dollar fee.”

               Last year when Carroll was a freshman he elected to make the 31 hour, 2000

mile trip from his hometown to Rindge.  Since he does not work on campus, Carroll had

to resort to traveling by plane too and from school this year.  “Last year I drove but fuel

costs and car maintenance costs forced me to fly this year,” Carroll said.  Unlike many

students Carroll was able to find a complimentary way of flying.  Because his

grandmother served time in the United States Air Force and then worked for United

Airlines, Sean is able to fly United for free as long as there is a seat on the plane.

Carroll said, “It is a great economic way to get home, I do miss having a car on campus

but, not many things in life are free.  I would be crazy not to take advantage of this.”

               Unlike Carroll other students like Sophomore Sean Woodring, do not share

this luxury and must find ways to afford high traveling costs.  Woodring who resides from Rogue River, Oregon, must also deal with the cost of airline travel.  According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics for the last quarter of 2008, prices reached the highest level of fares by any quarter in the last 13 years.  Woodring said, “Ticket price has gone up, the biggest price increases I have noticed have been during Christmas.”  Woodring who holds a student job on campus at the writing center says he must save his money carefully to be able to afford tickets home.

               “Sometimes my parents might help me out but, between my summer job and

working at school I can usually come close,” said Woodring.  Like Carroll, Woodring says  that the baggage fares hurt his pockets the most.  According to Woodring he is now only allowed to carry on one bag for free and one personal item.  A personal item can consist of things such as a laptop or even a pillow.  Woodring who fly’s both United Airline and Northwestern says the cost to put one item under the plane is fifteen bucks and the cost for a second item is twenty-five bucks.

               Traveling costs not only effect students flying but students who drive and use

other forms of transportation during summer months.  Sophomore J.P. Gasparrini plans

his travel to his home in Cape Cod, Massachusetts according to gas prices.  Gasparrini

said, “ In high school my family may have taken three cars down to the cape but, the

last two years gas prices have effected how we travel there.”  Now when his family

makes the trip from their primary home in Medway, Massachusetts to their Vacation

house on the Cape, they plan the trip so that they can all travel as one, opposed to on

different days.

               Although the cost of traveling effects students in different ways, they will still

find a way to make it back home at the end of the semester.

Professor Bush                                                                                        Journalism 2

In-Depth 2 Final Draft: Facebook & GPAs

My roommate (who wishes to not be named) sits at his computer daily typing away frantically. Most of the time however he is not doing his homework but is rather on Facebook talking to others about how he still has piles of work to do.

He is not alone. According to a recent study by Ohio State University researcher Aryn Karpinski showed that 68% of college students she surveyed used Facebook and that there is a correlation between Facebook usage and grade point average in both undergraduate and graduate students.

Karpinski’s study found that, out of the 219 Ohio State University students she surveyed, 148 had Facebook accounts. Those who had Facebook accounts had GPAs in the range of 3.0-3.5 and spent one to five hours per week studying. Those who did not have Facebook had 3.5-4.0 GPAs and spent 11 to 15 hours a week studying.

“We can’t say that use of Facebook leads to lower grades and less studying,” said Karpinksi, “but we did find a relationship there. There’s a disconnect between students’ claim that Facebook use doesn’t impact their studies, and our finding showing they had lower grades and spent less time studying.”

Likewise, 79 percent of the students she surveyed that used Facebook claimed that it did not interfere with their academics/studying and that they put school above Facebook as a priority.

When Franklin Pierce students were asked their thoughts about how Facebook affected their academic endeavors, the response was similar to the results of Kaprinski’s study.

“Anytime I pull up Internet Explorer or any other tab on a window I automatically type in facebook.com no matter what,” admits sophomore Kirsten Gallagher, “whether I meant to type in another website to research an assignment or something along those lines, I end up stuck on Facebook forever.”

From the responses received, though small in quantity, students are aware that Facebook is a distraction and could potentially interrupt them during their work and studies, but still opted to use it. Interestingly, one sophomore even admitted that he was trying to write a paper due for a class soon yet he instead decided to respond to my Facebook request for student input.

”It’s the best tool out there for wasting time,” Sussex County Community College student Chris DePue said. ”When I have to do write a research paper and I hit a wall, it’s so easy to lose myself in Facebook. I’ll tell myself ‘Oh 10 more minutes, 15 more’ but that easily turns into a half hour or more.”

However, with media outlets picking up Kaprinski’s findings and converting them into stories, individuals have begun speaking up. Communications department chairperson and professor at Coastal Carolina University Steve Madden said that even the “correlation” drawn between Facebook and student performance in Kaprinski’s research is questionable in an article for The State. “First, it was a small population,” said Madden, “secondly, I think they’re stretching it to say this happens [lower GPAs] because of that [Facebook]. It’s weak at best.”

Internet surfers that use Mozilla Firefox as their web browser can track the amount of times they visit a given site such as Facebook if they are concerned or curious about their usage. Students have admitted to totaling over 1,000 Facebook homepage visits in just over two weeks.

Students know that taking time to interact on Facebook, much like any other activity; can take time away from studying and other things of both an academic and non-academic nature. Joe Ferris, sophomore and the Vice President of the Student Government Association agrees and sees Facebook as being just a part of a larger problem. “It is just yet another thing to distract us in an already chaotic environment which is constantly pulling at our attention from all angles.”

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 thetakeaway.com

CELESTE HEADLEE: Good morning Bill

BILL KELLER: Good morning Celeste

HEADLEE: So explain the delay, the White House called you and asked you not to print the story?

KELLER: Well, actually, we called them, Mark Mazzetti and Dexter Filkins had the story pretty well nailed down last Thursday and they took it to the white house for comment, of course, as we routinely do, and the folks at the White House said, well hold on for a second we need to talk to you about this, and several of the people from our Washington bureau went over to the White House and sat down with people from the National Security Council and the press office and they said that they were pretty sure that Mullah Baladar’s colleagues in the Taliban were not yet aware that he was in custody. I don’t know the details of it, but they thought it had been a clean snatch and they were afraid once the word got out, other Taliban officials would go deeper underground or take measures to cover their tracks, so they asked us to hold off for a while.

HEADLEE: I’m going to ask you in a moment what went into your decision to do as they asked, but let me get the timeline of events down clearly. Your reporters from independent sources learned about this out of Pakistan.

KELLER: Yes Pakistan and Afghanistan.

HEADLEE: Then you went to the White House to get comment on it and that’s when they told you we want you to hold the story?

KELLER: That’s correct.

HEADLEE: Until today or until last night?

KELLER: Until last night, right.

CH: So why did you decide to do this? You don’t always acquiesce to these kinds of requests.

KELLER: No, we get asked to withhold information, not often but from time to time sometimes it’s a no-brainer, you know we have reporters embedded in military operations — obviously they don’t file information that would put troops at risk. W’ve had other stories that were much more controversial where we decided that we would publish. This one was not, honestly, a very hard call. Obviously we were eager to break the story, it represented a lot of resourceful reporting by Mark and Dexter, but there was no obvious public interest reason to rush the story into print and you know we are responsible people; we didn’t want to compromise what sounded like a possible intelligence coup.

HEADLEE: And certainly, the story retains just as much power more than a week later as it would have had you broken it right at the time, is that kind of your thought process?

KELLER: Yeah, I think that’s kind of the thought process. What actually happened, was yesterday our stringers in Pakistan and Afghanistan started calling our bureaus there and saying, we’re hearing reports that Mullah Baladar is in Pakistani custody, we took that to the White House and they said, yeah we understand it’s not holdable anymore.

HEADLEE: Right, so you published it. Now you visited the White House in 2006 while President Bush was in office and you were getting ready to publish a story about domestic wire tapping and very famously you were told if you published that story you’d have blood on your hands. Is that the kind of dire warning you got from the Obama White House?

KELLER: No, first of all this didn’t even get to my level, they dealt with Dean Baquet, the Washington bureau chief, I mean obviously if they felt they needed to call me, I’m always willing to take a call, but it didn’t even rise to that level. Back in 2006 the conversations were professional and civil, but in the end when we didn’t agree to hold the story as they wanted us to, it was a kind of firestorm of criticism from the White House aimed at the Times. So far anyway we haven’t had that acrimony with this administration, nor as far as I know have other news organizations.

HEADLEE: What’s the kind of bar that you have to come up to in order to decide that a story is worth holding at someone else’s request. Do you have to check in to make sure the White House isn’t making that request for their own spoken selfish reasons?

KELLER: It’s complicated. On the one hand I don’t have subpoena power, I don’t have spies in the National Security Agency, so knowing whether publishing a story would actually put national security at risk is a harder thing for me to figure out than it would be for somebody who’s actually in the government. But we do our best job at doing that and we take these requests quite seriously. I think the first one that I ever dealt with was when I was foreign editor in the Clinton administration, and we learned that there was a large unsecured stash of highly enriched uranium in the former soviet republic of Georgia. We held the story until the material was secured. That was not that hard a call. There are others where to this day we can’t talk about things we’ve held out because they would, for example endanger agents who are working in foreign countries.

Posted: 09 Feb 2010 04:03 PM PST

The Franklin Pierce JV baseball team traveled to Rhode Island Saturday afternoon to compete in their season opener, a double-header versus the community college of Rhode Island.  The first game was very disappointing as the Ravens lost the game 9-2.  The ravens were unable to get going offensively, racking up a total of 10 strikeouts in the seven innings played.  Head coach Scott Loiseau said “ With two strikes against us our players have to do a better job of competing, and put the ball in play”.  The ravens did not score their two runs of the game until the top of the seventh inning when freshman Kyle Polke (Stratford, Connecticut) hit a solo homerun.  With the score 9-1 and the Ravens had 2 outs freshman Mark Malcolm (Brockton, Massachusetts) hit a solo homerun of his own, making it a 9-2 game.  Both solo blasts were the first career collegiate homeruns by Malcolm and Polke respectively.  Mark Malcolm said, “ Off the bat I had thought I popped the ball up for a routine out, but then I realized I got more of it then I thought and it sailed over the fence, I was good feeling hitting my first homerun, hopefully next time we can be ahead when it happens”.

The second game would start off much better for Franklin Pierce.  The visiting Ravens blasted off to a 3-0 lead in the top of the first inning.  The Community College of Rhode Island would not stay behind for long.  The Knights came right back into the game scoring a equal three runs in the bottom of the first tying the game 1-1 after one inning.  The Ravens jumped out to a 5-3 lead going into the bottom of the 5^th inning, when disaster struck as the Knights scored 8 runs in the bottom of the inning.  The Ravens would end up losing the game 11-8.

The team will be playing their next game this Wednesday as they travel to Connecticut to play Eastern Connecticut State in a double-header starting at 3 p.m.  The Ravens will be looking to get their first