TPC-Journal-V3-Issue2

98 The Professional Counselor \Volume 3, Issue 2 of privacy relating to age or relationship status, but we did find that male students seemed to display more information. Differences Between Administrations Next, we had a comparison made between the first and second administrations of the survey to determine if teaching about the ethical challenges of using Facebook would impact privacy settings. In the first administration, about 48% reported establishing the maximum privacy allowed, and another 30.8% reported that more than half their information was private. The second administration showed an increase in the maximum privacy allowed at 63.2%. Another 26.3% of students reported having over half their information private. These results indicated an increase in privacy settings from the first to the second administration. We wanted to explore some possible explanations for this change. First, we had a third party compare the two lists of names and found that 11 students completed the survey a second time: seven already had the highest level of privacy set in the first survey and did not change their settings; three increased their level of privacy; and one did not have the highest level and did not increase the level of privacy. Some students made comments in the first survey stating that participating in the survey made them more aware of privacy settings, and consequently they wanted to establish more rigorous privacy settings; it appears that three students did, in fact, make this change. These results imply that at least part of the increase may have simply been due to completing the initial survey. Next, we had a third party review the names of all students who were currently in or had taken the ethics course between the two administration times. The results indicated that 10 students who took the second survey had completed an ethics course between administrations, and we know that during this time all instructors who taught ethics discussed the ethical challenges of using Facebook. In reviewing the results of the second administration, we found six had established the highest level of privacy; two had 50% or more of their information set as private; and two had less than 50% of their information set as private despite having been exposed to the risks associated with limited privacy. We hope that these students are simply less active users of Facebook and therefore do not feel the need to establish more rigorous settings, but we do not know for certain. Several articles noted that a few individuals seem to establish some privacy settings, but still had photos that can be seen by the public (Lehavot et al., 2010; MacDonald et al., 2010; Salaway et al., 2008). Much like the rigor of privacy settings, the results of photos displayed to the public shifted between each administration (see Table 2). Table 2 Photo Visibility Privacy Level on Facebook Admin. 1 Admin. 2 Public 54% 37% Friends 14% 35% Customized 17% 53% Lehavot et al. (2010) found that 3% of respondents had photos and 6% had information they would not want their classmates to see. These numbers increased when asked about faculty (11%) and clients (29%). Our results showed this same trend with both administrations of the survey. Table 3 shows the trend for pictures or videos that students would not want classmates, professors, supervisors or clients to see. Table 4 reveals a similar trend about information posted that students would not want others to see. These trends did not change substantially between administrations as we had hoped. We suspect that even though some students increased their levels of