Social work & social media: a survey of use, attitudes, and knowledge among U.S. students

Abstract

The propagation of social media carries important ethical ramifications for communication norms, democracy, societal wellbeing, and individual mental health. These issues fall within the professional purview of social work. The purpose of this national survey study (N = 430) was to describe social media use, attitudes, and knowledge among social work students across the United States. To achieve this stated purpose, the authors obtained IRB Human Subjects approval and contacted undergraduate and graduate social work program directors at the identified 150 institutions using a random, stratified sampling method. A 66-item Qualtrics survey on social media use, attitudes, and knowledge was subsequently sent to program directors, who in turn administered the link to enrolled social work students. Overall, findings reveal that social work students seemingly hold conflicting attitudes toward social media that are also at times contrary to their self-reported knowledge and use of social media, and that have potential implications for the social work profession. The authors discuss social media’s ethical implications for the social work profession, supporting the position that information about social media should be included in social work curricula and making suggestions to this end.