TPC-Journal-V3-Issue2

99 The Professional Counselor \Volume 3, Issue 2 privacy, they did not remove information or photos assuming that the improved privacy settings would protect them. This may be explained by the assertion from Howe and Strauss (2003) and Reith (2005), who believe the millennial generation is more trusting of institutions since they had positive experiences with their parents. Table 3 Picture and Video Visibility Privacy Level Admin. 1 Admin. 2 Classmate 0% 5% Professor 8% 14% Supervisor 18% 21% Client 42% 53% Table 4 Information Posted Privacy Level Admin. 1 Admin. 2 Classmate 8% 5% Professor 25% 12% Supervisor 29% 23% Client 52% 57% We wanted to examine the implications for the current generation of counseling students, as well as for counselor educators on the use of SNS, and specifically Facebook. The potential ethical minefields Facebook presents for students at every level of counselor development persuaded us that both a perusal of the literature and a survey of our own students’ Facebook use would yield important information. In particular, we looked at the prevalence of Facebook use, its possible roots in the culture of Millennials, and the extent to which Millennials expose their private lives on this particular SNS. The results of our two surveys helped us understand Facebook use in our own program, informing us as faculty about retooling ethics education for our students. The surveys also lent support to previous research findings in some areas and raised questions regarding the generalizability of others. However, our survey results are only descriptive and may not be representative of all of our students or of counseling students across the country. Facebook Risks for Counselors-in-Training Millennials are the most prolific generation of users of social networking sites (Hazlett, 2008) and therefore, compared to previous generations, have been found in the literature to be more likely to have posted personal information on a SNS. Our data did not support this assertion; the reasons for this phenomenon remain unclear and require further research. It has been suggested that this generation is particularly self-absorbed, and there is some empirical evidence supporting this notion (Mehdizadeh, 2010; Steward & Bernhardt, 2010; and Twenge, 2010), but a less pathologically-tinged explanation may be that self-disclosure on Facebook and other SNS is a cultural norm for them. Regardless, the critical issue is the extent to which counseling students are employing Facebook privacy settings. If, indeed, Millennials tend to use fewer privacy options and are likely to post more