Millennial Counselors and the Ethical Use of Facebook

The use of social networking sites (SNS), and Facebook in particular, seems to be on the rise (Salaway, Nelson, & Ellison, 2008). The majority of users tend to be from the millennial generation (Hazlett, 2008), as are the majority of graduate counseling students. This discussion explores several areas regarding the use of Facebook. First, we review the literature on why students from the millennial generation are such avid users of Facebook. Second, we explore privacy settings: how MiUennials establish privacy settings and what demographic factors may be correlated with the level of privacy settings they establish. Results from an online descriptive survey of counseling students are compared with and found in many ways to be inconsistent with the literature on the risk factors associated with limited use of privacy settings. Implications of and recommendations for using Facebook for counselors and counselor educators are provided. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]