Many therapists fear social media use. While it is true that one must be cautious, many therapists simply don’t understand how social media works and avoid it out of irrational fear. In this post, I will explain the main drawbacks of social media in counseling.
Boundary Crossing and Confidentiality Issues
The main drawback of social media use, particularly for therapists, is the opportunity it creates for both boundary crossing and confidentiality issues. This is the reason most therapists refuse to use social media. Therapists get into trouble because they don’t understand how social media works, not because social media is inherently problematic. By becoming educated in social media and behaving ethically just as you would when not on a social platform, these problems can be avoided. Because these types of issues differ slightly by platform, I will cover them in more detail in the next few weeks.
Time
Another major drawback is time. Due to its addictive nature, if you aren’t disciplined and don’t have a social media plan you can easily lose hours of your day with little or no benefit. Even with specific goals, proper use of social media is time consuming. Each site must be kept current, which means adding new information regularly; a dead social media site is worse than no social media site at all. Although there are productivity tools that can be utilized to save time, be careful about duplicating messages across social media platforms. First, social platforms really encourage the use of original content. Second, there are varying etiquette considerations across the platforms that cannot be accommodated without tailoring engagement for each platform. For example, it is perfectly acceptable, even expected, to have multiple Twitter updates per day. Try that on your Facebook page and your audience will quickly become aggravated. Making matters worse, ROI (return on investment) is difficult, if not impossible, to measure. All of these elements can add up to a huge waste of your valuable time. Therefore, you need to create a plan, limit your time, and stick to your plan. You may want to focus your efforts on just a few sites instead of trying to use all of the platforms.
The Inhibition Factor
Because social media is immediate and anonymous, it may be tempting to post things without thinking them through. Bad idea. Therapists must be careful about what they post. Not only are posts public, but content will remain indefinitely. Therefore, therapists should treat every social media post as if it is the headline in tomorrow’s newspaper. Obviously, this would include any kind of personal information. In general, therapists should separate personal information from professional information whenever possible.
Profile Pictures
Lastly, please keep in mind that profile pictures are generally publically available, even when privacy options exist. For example, even if you set your Facebook personal profile to “private,” your profile picture is still visible to the public. Do you really want the world to see you in jeans drinking a beer? Therefore, a professional headshot is the best way to go, even for your Facebook personal profile page.
Yours in the Joy of Knowledge,
Barbara LoFrisco
