“Human behavior and the social media environment”: group differences in social media attitudes and knowledge among U.S. social work students

ABSTRACT

Social media has ethical implications for social work practice, and accordingly, for professional identity and social work education. In Spring 2019, we administered a 57-item survey to undergraduate and graduate social work students (N = 42) in order to ascertain attitudes about and knowledge of social media at a public university in the Southeastern United States. The purpose of the present study is to explore group differences between social work students who were enrolled in the course, Human Behavior and the Social Media Environment (HBSME), and those who were not, on social media attitudes and knowledge, and to make recommendations for social work education and research accordingly. Key differences were observed between students who were enrolled in HBSME and those who were not. In the Discussion section, we examine these differences against the backdrop of professional social work ethics. Accordingly, we make recommendations for social work education and research.

KEYWORDS:

• Social work education
• social work ethics
• social media
• social justice
• human behavior and the social environment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lauren A. Ricciardelli

Lauren A. Ricciardelli, PhD, LMSW, is an assistant professor of social work and human services at Troy University in Phenix City, Alabama.  Her broad area of research focus is the intersection of social policy and social work professional ethics across the following topics: disability rights and social inclusion; criminal justice reform and the death penalty; and, immigration detention. Her secondary and more recent research trajectory takes up the concern for the impact of technology and social media on social work education and professional identity at the macro-level.

Adam E. Quinn

Adam E. Quinn, PhD, MSW, received his Ph.D. in Social Work and an M.S. in Statistics from the University of Georgia in 2016, as well as a Master of Social Work (M.S.W.) from the University of Washington in Seattle in 2007. He has taught social work, psychology, research methods, and statistics courses. His research interests include investigating the social determinants of health disparities, examining predictors of secondary traumatic stress among mental health professionals, and understanding factors related to alcohol-use disorders among older adults across the life course.

Larry Nackerud

Larry Nackerud, PhD, MSW, is a professor of social work at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. His primary teaching and research interests explore the formulation of social welfare policies and the applied practice of social work. In his teaching and research, Nackerud pays a great deal of attention to the elements of research methodology, particularly the use of an interpretive inquiry paradigm, different sampling strategies, and combining quantitative and qualitative methods.