Just like freerice.com, people are much more likely to think of the social networking site facebook.com as a procrastination tool than an educational helper. And ok, when it comes to facebook, they're right. The site exploded among college students, then high school students, and eventually everyone was welcome. College students found it particularly helpful to keep in touch with friends at different schools and back home. After all, it's much easier to write a quick note on someone's "wall" then to call them, which has the potential to interrupt at a bad time or to last a long time and work as procrastination in its own right.
It's facebook's communicative properties that make it both a detraction and a help for students. It is common for students working on group projects together to friend each other on facebook and communicate about the project there. I've also seen class sections create groups where members of the class ask questions and offer tips and advice. Students using Facebook for academic purposes just have to exercise strong willpower not to click away from their homework help and go looking at a friend's profile instead.
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