Announcer:
This is NASW's Social Work Talks. Thanks for joining us. This is the second of a two part series on how teens are using technology, specifically gaming and social media. In this episode our host Greg Wright speaks with NASW member Sean Erreger. Sean Erreger is a clinical case manager for at-risk children and youth at the New York State Office of Mental Health. Sean has also become a highly regarded expert on social workers and social media. Here he gives advice on how social workers can help young people and parents navigate social media ethically and safely. Now here's Greg Wright with Sean Erreger.
Greg Wright:
Welcome to Social Work Talks, Sean.
Sean Erreger:
Thanks. Thanks for having me.
Greg Wright:
Sean, you are an active blogger and you're also on Twitter a lot. How did you get so involved with social media?
Sean Erreger:
I kind of fell into it by accident. Pitching a book at the time, this was about four or five years ago, one of the editors I was working with suggest you should develop some sort of web presence, a blog and a little bit of social media. In that process I really got interested in social media and how it works and mostly on the kind of peer to peer side, social peer to peer and with other professionals. Because along the same time at the day job working case management there was this emphasis on integrating physical health and behavioral health. So I started looking at tools to do that, networking with folks on social media and the healthcare space and the health IT space. Just kind of realizing the value of learning from other disciplines like that, learning from other social workers about technology and social media, learning from other disciplines, people who are working on technology ethics issues like social media ethics. There's just such a sense of community and turnaround, Twitter around hashtags, LinkedIn groups, such powerful ways for professionals to kind of join together.
Greg Wright:
You've done a lot of work on how social media influences younger people.
Sean Erreger:
It seemed to have started about a year and a half, two years ago. People started asking questions, trying to kind of quantify it and measure the impact that social media was having on youth. And then of course with my day job, working with at risk youth, certainly engaging in conversations with them about social media in their lives. Not a week goes by where social media doesn't come up in conversation in sessions, so I started to look at the research that is kind of teasing this out a little bit. The biggest question was Instagram and in terms of how it effects the image and how people view who they're supposed to be, what they're supposed to look like, things like that. I started to talk to kids about it but also kind of looking at the research, and there was a fair amount of research to suggest there is credence to that, that kids look at that, Instagram or young adults too, look at Instagram, kind of comparing themselves to celebrities and then holding themselves up to those kind of standards and that was having a negative impact on people. In terms of time spent on social media and kind of was that causing isolation? There's kind of some debate about that, whether or not there's some sort of casual effect between social media and depression and mood. It certainly impacts your mood and some of the research kind of teasing that out a little bit that, yeah it does have a negative effect on mood. I think it did have some sort of more negative impact on females in terms of eating disorders, but it's not all terrible. Yes there are some negative effects but also some semi-decent things come out of social media use as well. But it's not all terrible. Yes there are some negative effects but also some semi-decent things come out of social media use as well. On the positive side of that, if you look at Instagram, if you look at their safety and community standards, these companies are starting to think about [crosstalk] this a little more and how they can respond to things and provide education. I know that's one step that Instagram has taken, was to make accessible eating disorder education and resources available to youth and parents. In terms of youth, is there a way for youth to connect on social media in a positive way. And unfortunately there wasn't too much resource in the presentation that I did. I think there was one study that referenced that there was some sort of discrepancy between how they felt connected with each other but then that sort of made them feel a little bit disconnected from their parents as well, which was kind of interesting. I guess from the social work perspective I think there are two things that we can look at. We can look at social media as kind of an issue of culture competency. Should, as social workers, is there an obligation for us to know what the norms and rules are for social media platforms? The other issue is in terms empowerment and choice. Is it something we should be educating youth on as a positive thing to connect with peers on social media to feel like they're not alone? And I think that that's another thing that social work needs to kind of consider when we're thinking about these platforms, that there can be risks but there also can be protective factors as well and kind of balancing that out a little bit.
Greg Wright:
Yeah, so in other words you are recommending that all social workers should have a basic knowledge about social media platforms.
Sean Erreger:
Yeah, I think so. To give an example, this kid was sending abusive messages to my client on this social media platform called Kik and I'm like, I don't know what it is. So I felt compelled to research and try to understand it a little bit more but also ask my client. We should be aware of some of the norms and rules so to speak on the professional side. I know that how I post things and interact with other professionals on Twitter is a little bit different from how I post things and interact with other professionals and other disciplines on LinkedIn. You know, that there are certain rules and norms that are different between the platforms and we should be kind of familiarizing ourselves a little bit with the kind of rules and norms of platforms.
Greg Wright:
You work with a lot of young people. Is there basic advice that you give them on how to behave on social media?
Sean Erreger:
Yeah. I mean I say the biggest thing that I say is that what you put on there is forever so to speak. For those that are familiar with [Seth's 00:07:52] Snapchat, things just kind of show up on your Snapchat stories. But even though it disappears in seven seconds, somebody can take a screenshot. Just to kind of get kids to kind of think about what you're posting about and how it could effect you and how it could effect other people as well, not only in the short-term but potentially in the long-term. But also knowing that good things can come out of it as well. To kind of go the other way, to know that if somebody is bullying you you can take screenshots of things and print out things, bring them to your guidance counselor, have a discussion. Bring them to session so that I could, if it gets enough I know that there's certain ways that we can access law enforcement in New York state if bullying becomes that pervasive because it is a pretty complex issue. But I think that as long as we're teaching kids to be kind of mindful about what they post and how it can be potentially empowering for them we'll be doing them a service.
Greg Wright:
Should a parent monitor what a child does on social media?
Sean Erreger:
There are a few platforms out there actually where parents can monitor for certain things. What I would suggest is similar to a family meeting, have family meeting around social media. Talk about any safety concerns, any concerns that you're having about it. They might just grumble and say no, no, there's no problems but at least to ask the questions, check in. Show them that latest article you see on the news about Instagram being negative and talk to your child about it. I would say some thing in social work practice, too. Be able to have a conversation with the kids that you work with about their perception of this stuff that's coming out. Keep it platform agnostic and say that there are social media platforms where parents and children can sit down together and choose the keywords within social media and text that they want to be alerted to.
Greg Wright:
With what is that...
Sean Erreger:
Okay. Yeah there's one called Bark which is just bark.us. Parents and children can kind of sit down and pick the keywords that they want to be alerted to and can agree that if somebody in a social media post or a text mentions the word suicide that an alert will be sent to the parent. Like that kind of thing, but what I liked about it was there was this co-decision making piece. I thought that was pretty powerful though, that parents and children can kind of sit down and work together about what works they think they should be worried about on social media. And then there's other kind of automatic alerts about inappropriate content. Surveillance is an opportunity for discussion, I think is the key.
Greg Wright:
NASW put out a revised code of ethics recently and it include some technology areas to it. I was wondering from you as a member and also as an observer, were those adequate or should the code of ethics go further?
Sean Erreger:
I think that they covered the issues well. I think that what more that I felt was missing from the social media piece was the tech standards and ethical standards mentioned the need for a social media policy but didn't really give a whole lot of guidance in terms of how to build one. And I think that that's important, that social workers be able to understand kind of these ethical problems when they arise professionally. I didn't really go back and look at it from the lens of the clinical side a little bit, too. I was mostly again looking at it with that lens of professional and professional conversations. But yeah I think it was pretty good in terms of covering the social media concerns that may arise. There's probably stuff that you can write in a standard of the way that technology is moving so fast that you could write in a standard one year and then next year it could be totally obsolete because this new thing has come out and this new way of having a conversation on social media has come out. The other advice that I would give for parents and other professionals about this technology, I mentioned Instagram has their safety and community standards, but to look at Facebook's safety and community standards and kind of familiarize yourself with those things.
Greg Wright:
We're wondering if you can give us some specific suggestions on where social workers can go to in order to learn more about social media and how young people are using social media today.
Sean Erreger:
Yeah, sure. Yeah so like I said before a good place to look if you're looking for platform specific questions is to look at those safety and community standards. The other resources that I would suggest, CommonSenseMedia.org, the National PTA, PTA.org, they have a digital safety section for parents. In terms of youth there's one checklist that I found that's helpful that I've used just to engage in a conversation with youth about social media use.
Greg Wright:
Are there any social media sites that are actually better at doing that that you've found?
Sean Erreger:
I know that Facebook and Facebook groups, based on specific problems can be helpful. I know that there's one Teen Aspire, which is a peer to peer community for healthcare, various healthcare diagnosis's. They've built a kind of mini social media platform. I think there's a lot of organizations kind of thinking about how they can provide specific resources. I know that I mentioned that LGBT community as well, for youth there's the Trevor Project. They have a lot of educational material, trying to make that accessible for youth and also so that they can kind of drive conversation about it as well.
Greg Wright:
Now, a lot of bullying happens online and are there things that a social worker can do to address that? And also, are there resources out there for social workers if they need some guidance on how to address bullying happening with a client?
Sean Erreger:
Yeah. I think it varies. I mentioned this before, I think this varies state to state. You'd have to check with your jurisdiction in terms of what laws and what recourse you can take. I know that in New York state where I practice, I know we're able to, if a youth brings screenshots of their, if somebody's bullying them online, that it's consistent enough and is able to kind of timestamp and they're able to kind of track who it is, I know we can bring that information to law enforcement.
Sean Erreger:
And that was based on a law that's kind of driven by the schools here in New York state. I would kind of check with local jurisdictions, schools to see what your laws are in terms of what kind of recourse you get if a client is being bullied online and it's that persistent.
Greg Wright:
You had earlier said that you were working on a book?
Sean Erreger:
Like I said, I have the training on my website which is stuckonsocialwork.com. Hopefully launching soon to have two hours of CEU's of social media ethics for social workers.
Greg Wright:
Sean, we all thank you so much.
Sean Erreger:
You're very welcome, thanks for having me.
Announcer:
You have been listening to NASW Social Work Talks, a production of the National Association of Social Workers. We encourage you to visit NASW's website for more information about our efforts to enhance the professional growth and development of our members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound social policies. You can learn more at www.socialworkers.org. And don't forget to subscribe to NASW Social Work Talks wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for joining us. We look forward to seeing you next episode.