Students blame Facebook for flunking grades

Dozens of Dalhousie University students are unliking Facebook after failing their classes and landing in summer school.

As much as 15 per cent of engineering students are flunking out, said J. Pemberton Cyrus, the dean of the engineering department. He said many of them point the blame at Facebook and other forms of social media.

"It was one of the biggest issues for me," admits student Ibraheem Albayati, who spent too much of his first year online. He's now in a special summer program to bring him up to speed with his studies.

"They waste 24 hours a week on the internet doing things they shouldn't be doing," said Susan Holmes, who runs the program called Refining Your Skills. "And their cell phones are beeping all the time and interrupting them."

Holmes teaches the students the basics, such as time management skills. She tries to remind them why they're in university in the first place.

"When you remind yourself what your dreams are, it helps you to put yourself on the way so you can have success in your class."

Albayati says he's learned his lesson, and is deactivating his Facebook account.