MySpace or Yours? The Ethical Dilemma of Graduate Students' Personal Lives on the Internet

Transcription

1 Ethics & Behavior ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: MySpace or Yours? The Ethical Dilemma of Graduate Students' Personal Lives on the Internet Keren Lehavot To cite this article: Keren Lehavot (2009) MySpace or Yours? The Ethical Dilemma of Graduate Students' Personal Lives on the Internet, Ethics & Behavior, 19:2, , DOI: / To link to this article: Published online: 14 Apr Submit your article to this journal Article views: 2039 View related articles Citing articles: 22 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at Download by: [ ] Date: 20 November 2017, At: 06:34

2 LEHAVOT GRADUATE STUDENTS ON THE INTERNET ETHICS & BEHAVIOR, 19(2), Copyright 2009 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: print / online DOI: / MySpace or Yours? The Ethical Dilemma of Graduate Students Personal Lives on the Internet Keren Lehavot University of Washington The booming popularity of the Internet, and particularly increasing use of personal Web sites, social networking sites, and blogging, raises questions regarding the ethical use of psychology graduate students personal online information for academic purposes. Given rising controversies such as use of such information to screen applicants, I refer to the principles and standards of the Ethics Code of the American Psychological Association (2002) to examine ethical concerns associated with graduate students personal information on the Internet, namely, the protection of privacy, use of informed consent, consideration of autonomy, and implications for students clinical work. Finally, I make several recommendations for graduate training faculty and graduate students as they consider placing and using information on and from the Internet. The Internet is rapidly infiltrating the fabric of everyday life. Phone surveys by the Pew Internet and American Life Project show that 73% of American adults are Internet users (Madden, 2006) and some 55% have broadband Internet at home (Horrigan, 2008). Moreover, a recent study showed that 82% of undergraduate students reported using online social networks (Caruso & Salaway, 2007). Further, although there remain gaps in access to and use of the Internet based on education, income, age, and racial background, the overall online population is becoming increasingly more diverse (Fox, 2004; Horrigan & Murray, 2006; Howard, Rainie, & Jones, 2002). Engagement over the Internet among graduate students, in particular, may be even more common. In a large study that examined the Internet s impact on both undergraduate and graduate students daily lives across 27 institutions in the United States, findings show that students are early adopters and heavy users of the Internet (Jones, 2002). Specifically, 20% of today s college students began using computers between the ages of 5 and 8. The great majority (85%) reported owning their own computer, and 72% check at least once a day. Compared to the average Internet user, college Internet users are twice as likely to use instant messaging on any given day. Indeed, students social lives have been significantly changed by the Internet. Relatively new Web sites such as MySpace and Facebook and the use of blogs such as LiveJournal where individuals can post photos, music, entries disclosing personal information, as well as network with others are becoming more and more popular with the graduate student body. In fact, MySpace is the sixth largest country in the world and has more monthly visitors than any other site, experiencing more rapid growth than any other Internet site in history (Rosen, 2007). Correspondence should be addressed to Keren Lehavot, Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Box , Seattle, WA klehavot@u.washington.edu

3 130 LEHAVOT Personal and social use of the Internet by psychology graduate students creates new ethical dilemmas that the profession of psychology has not yet carefully considered. Although the literature has addressed some dilemmas posed by the Internet for psychology, including issues regarding and online therapy (e.g., Mallen, Vogel, & Rochlen, 2005; Manhal-Baugus, 2001), psychologists ethical responsibilities in Internet-based groups (e.g., Humphreys, Winzelberg, & Klaw, 2000), and conducting online research (e.g., Childress & Asamen, 1998; Keller & Lee, 2003; Pittenger, 2003), psychologists have not yet addressed the implications arising from students disclosure of personal information via the Internet. Such disclosures present ethical dilemmas across time for a student s career: as a graduate student or intern applicant, as a current student, and as a practicing psychotherapist. I present the following three case studies as examples of the types of dilemmas that may occur. Case 1: Applying to Graduate School: A graduate training faculty member is reviewing applications of prospective students and decides to look up applicants names on Google and within sites he knows are popularly used by students, such as MySpace, to learn additional information about them. Some applicants do not appear on the Internet at all, whereas others papers and research presentations come up as results. Moreover, one applicant s MySpace profile appears, where she presents highly sexualized, clearly unprofessional photos of herself. The faculty member uses this information in his decision to reject the applicant. Case 2: Graduate Student Activities: A faculty member goes online and runs a search for her student s name. She discovers a link to her student s blog. While reading the blog, the student s advisor learns that the student is struggling with alcohol and drug use and is engaged in other illegal activities such as selling alcohol to minors. The advisor would like to call a faculty meeting, revealing what she has learned out of concern for the student. Case 3: Student Therapists: A second-year clinical psychology graduate student is seeing clients through the program s clinic. His client, a young woman in her 20s, finds her therapist s MySpace profile and blog, where she reads about her therapist s affair and resulting break-up with his girlfriend. The information leads the client to terminate with her therapist and file a complaint with the clinic regarding the therapist s ethically inappropriate behavior. Although clients may look up their therapists online for sheer curiosity, one might ask why faculty members, in the first place, would search for students on the Internet. Without a doubt, the Internet not only has become prominent among graduate students but also has infiltrated the field of psychology as a whole. For example, psychologists have begun using the Internet to provide school counseling (e.g., Gray, 1997), train and promote decision making (e.g., Kruger, Cohen, Marca, & Matthews, 1996), provide sexuality education (e.g., Cooper, 1998), and generally contribute to mental health care by means of consultation and supervision (e.g., Smith, 1998; Stamm, 1998). Moreover, many students and faculty members curriculum vitae, research publications, and academic accomplishments can now be found on the Internet, and communication with colleagues and Institutional Review Boards through this medium is ubiquitous. In this way, the Internet has become an integral part of psychology s mainstream culture. Faculty members may thus use the Internet to look up their students when searching for publications or other references,

4 GRADUATE STUDENTS ON THE INTERNET 131 incidentally encountering a student s personal Web site or profile, or alternatively, a faculty member may deliberately search for an applicant online to learn more about him or her. The Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (Ethics Code) (APA, 2002) is of limited value in providing specific guidance about placing information on the Internet and the ethical use of such information. Nonetheless, several essential principles serve as a reasonable starting point (Brown & Krager, 1985; Kitchner, 1992). When students consider placing information on the Internet and faculty members consider using it to make academic decisions, they may reflect on the principles of (a) beneficence (How can I contribute to the welfare of my students or clients?), (b) nonmaleficence (How can I avoid intentional or unintended harm to my students or clients?), (c) fidelity (How can I establish and maintain relationships of trust with my students or clients?), (d) justice (How will I ensure equitable treatment of students regardless of variables such as race, age, socioeconomic status, and gender?), and (e) autonomy (How can I respect and strengthen my students independence and maturity?). Although these professional principles are fundamental to ethical care, they are primarily aspirational in nature, and the unique difficulties that arise with graduate students personal information posted on the Internet deserve additional and more focused attention. Relying on the current standards in the APA Ethics Code (APA, 2002), I review ethical issues related to graduate students on the Internet, namely, the preservation of students privacy, the issue of students informed consent, and respect for students autonomy. Next, I review clinical implications of student disclosures on the Internet. Finally, I make several recommendations for graduate training faculty and graduate students as they consider placing and using information on and from the Internet. PRIVACY: CONFIDENTIALITY AND BOUNDARIES There are at least two pertinent questions that may be asked regarding privacy: the question of whether information learned about a student through the Internet can be considered confidential, and the question of whether personal information learned about a student can be used professionally. I will first consider the issue of confidentiality, and then turn to the personal professional boundary. Privacy and Confidentiality It is first important to clarify the difference between the legal concept of privacy, which addresses who has the legal right to release confidential information shared in a professional relationship and is afforded to very few dyads, including lawyer client, doctor patient, and psychologist client, and the looser, layperson notion of privacy, in which we expect that the confidences we share with trusted others will remain private. The notion of privacy dealt with here between student and faculty member refers to the latter. A central issue regarding whether faculty members can ethically use personal information posted by graduate students on the Internet is whether such information can be considered private versus public. Indeed, the public nature of the Internet heightens concerns for graduate students privacy and confidentiality. Principle E of the current guidelines requires that psychologists respect individuals right to privacy (APA, 2002). Unfortunately, the guidelines do not define privacy per se. As I argue subsequently, privacy is a subjective state that individuals may expect under certain conditions and when they exercise specific precautions. Consequently, it is necessary to develop a schema for

5 132 LEHAVOT determining the boundary of expected privacy within the Internet and the domain in which others can ethically use information learned through the Internet in making academic decisions. From one perspective, the Internet offers no veil of privacy because any disclosure one makes through any Internet forum is, by its very nature, public. Stephen Behnke, director of APA Ethic s Office, stated that putting something on the Internet is no different than leaving it on a table at a coffee shop at the mall (as cited in Chamberlin, 2007, p. 14). Similarly, the Council of Chairs of Training Councils, an organization that supports communication among doctoral, internship, and postdoctoral training groups in psychology, agrees that how one communicates via the Internet is the same as any other public behavior. Indeed, the Internet is an intentionally public instrument that the government developed as a component of the military organizational structure (Lester, 2001). By analogy, the Internet is a public location in which individuals are free to observe what transpires. As indicated by Pittenger (2003), whether I kiss my partner or scold my children in public, I cannot expect others to avert their eyes to avoid seeing me do something that I might consider intimate or embarrassing for the simple reason that I have acted where it is easy for others to see what I do and hear what I say. According to this reasoning, the same is true of the Internet. What I send through the Internet, no matter how intimate or embarrassing I believe the information may be, passes through a public medium. Therefore, I cannot expect that others will avert their gaze. Two additional observations support the argument that the Internet is equivalent to a public place and provides faculty members unrestrained access to information they find about their students. First, the Internet is now a common instrument with which the average person is familiar. In other words, users of the Internet understand the openness of the media for the simple reason that they have unregulated access to the communications of others. Second, if uncomfortable with that openness, a user can retain his or her anonymity by using a pseudonym. The logic of these observations leads to the simple conclusion that information posted on the Internet in any unrestricted forum constitutes a public event that supports no expectation of privacy. Consequently, a faculty member may have access to such information and use it, exercising moderate discretion as she or he sees fit. In other words, given no expectation that the information accessed on the Internet is private, faculty may use it as they would any other public information. Nonetheless, there may be additional circumstances that require a greater respect for privacy. When a person is in a public place, he or she may do things that build an expectation of privacy. For example, I may whisper to my partner to share information that we consider intimate. The whisper affords a modest veil of privacy in that I have taken a precaution to prevent others from hearing what I want to say. Therefore, it seems reasonable that being given access to a student s otherwise restricted or secure Web site for example, by being listed in the student s select group of friends who may view the site affords an expectation of privacy. Consider a student who creates a MySpace profile and restricts access of the profile only to individuals the student approves. Do such conditions represent an expectation of privacy? Indeed, it seems reasonable to presume that the level of expected privacy increases with the mechanisms students use to restrict others from access to their information. Those sites with the fewest barriers to access appear to support the least level of expected privacy. By contrast, those sites requiring an application procedure that assigns screen names to participants for entry create prima facie evidence for the presumption of expected privacy. A further complication is encountered, however, when considering students expectations regarding online journals or blogs, where considerable amounts of personal information may be

6 GRADUATE STUDENTS ON THE INTERNET 133 learned. A recent telephone survey of a nationally representative sample of bloggers (a term for a person who expresses him or herself via online media) found that most are focused on describing their personal experiences to a relatively small number of readers (Lenhart & Fox, 2006). In fact, despite the public nature of creating a blog, most bloggers report viewing blogging as a personal pursuit, with 52% of bloggers stating that they blog mostly for themselves, not for an audience. Indeed, ethicist Randy Cohen (2007) stated that many regard their blogs as at least semiprivate. Thus, student bloggers may have an expectation of privacy when posting their thoughts and personal experiences in an online journal. Certainly, one may question why post the information online if one wants privacy; nonetheless, it appears that some users may regard blogs with a false sense of privacy. The answer to the question of whether information learned about a student on the Internet should be considered private or public may be further resolved using the utilitarian principles that permeate the APA Ethics Code (APA, 2002). Specifically, one must consider the ethical costs relative to the benefits of using or disclosing the information. For example, in Case 2, in which the faculty member learned of her student s drug use and illegal activities through an online blog, the student s expectation of privacy must be weighed against protecting vulnerable populations such as minors. In other words, the extent to which information might be regarded as confidential must be balanced with minimizing harm to oneself, others, or the student, as outlined in Standard 4.05b, Disclosures, which specifically states that psychologists disclose confidential information without the consent of the individual as mandated by law or where permitted by law for a valid purpose such as to protect the client/patient, psychologist, or others from harm (p. 1066). Boundaries A second ethical issue regarding privacy is whether personal information learned about a student may be used for professional purposes (Pipes, Holstein, & Aguirre, 2005). In considering this issue, one may ask what difference there is, if any, between using personal information about a student gleaned through any source, not just the Internet. For example, assume that in Case 2, a current student is friends with the faculty member s student and tells the faculty about her student s drinking problem. The dilemma of whether and how such personal information should be used professionally appears to be the same, regardless of the source. Nonetheless, given the wide use of the Internet by graduate students and their cohort, and particularly its use to reveal highly personal information, such as drug and sexual behavior, it is crucial to recognize that the Internet makes such situations much more likely to occur. Regarding the boundary between one s personal and professional life, the 2002 APA Ethics Code states the following: The Ethics Code applies only to psychologists activities that are part of their scientific, educational, or professional roles as psychologists. These activities shall be distinguished from the purely private conduct of psychologists, which is not within the purview of the Ethics Code. (p. 1061) Thus, when students do not act in their role as psychologists, no constraints are imposed or mandated by the Ethics Code. On the other hand, despite the clear statement about the purview of the Ethics Code, Standard 2.06, Personal Problems and Conflicts, and Standard 3.06, Conflict of Interest, suggest that psychologists personal behaviors might be at least somewhat of a concern

7 134 LEHAVOT when considering whether the Ethics Code has been violated. For Example, Standard 2.06 states that psychologists refrain from initating an activity when they know or should know that there is a substantial likelihood that their personal problems will prevent them from performing their work-related activities in a competent manner (p. 1064). Indeed, controversy regarding the boundary between one s personal and professional behavior has unfolded in many arenas, including the Internet. For example, antigay comments posted on a professor s Web log (Smallwood, 2003) sparked the university community to examine the role of such personal pages in the university s communal and intellectual life. Situations where graduate students include detailed complaints about their clients, advisors, or programs in their personal blogs (Chamberlin, 2007) may lead to similar controversies within the university community. Most relevant, perhaps, to the issue of whether students personal information can be ethically used by faculty members is Standard 7.04 (Student Disclosure of Personal Information). The Ethics Code states that students personal information is not required to be disclosed unless the program has clearly identified this requirement or if the information is necessary to evaluate students whose personal problems could reasonably be judged to be preventing them from performing their training or professionally related activities in a competent manner or posing a threat to the students or others (APA, 2002, p. 1071). Although the standard applies to whether psychologists require students to disclose such information themselves, it could in principle be used to consider whether the information, upon discovery, can be ethically used. Thus, it appears that information could be used ethically in some situations but not in others. In Case 1, the unprofessional photo on the applicant s MySpace profile seems to be outside the purview of the Ethics Code (assuming that the photo does not impinge on the student s competence or pose harm to others), whereas the students alcohol and drug use in Case 2 seems to be more relevant. Nonetheless, there are those who advocate virtue ethics as an alternative or supplement to principle ethics (e.g., Kitchener, 1996, 2000). Virtue ethics emphasizes character and self-reflection, and suggests that the kind of person someone is guides how the person thinks in the professional as well as in the personal realm. Some have suggested that training programs should pay more attention to issues of character and fitness for duty (e.g., Johnson & Campbell, 2004; Pipes et al., 2005), with screening and discipline in terms of integrity, prudence, caring, personality adjustment, psychological health, and use of substances. Thus, the ethical use of students personal information is further complicated for programs who embrace the virtue ethics approach, who may feel more pressure to select applicants and hold current students responsible for their moral character and behaviors. The APA Ethics Code requires that psychologists respect the privacy of individuals (Standard 4.01, Maintaining Confidentiality) but fails to define the boundaries of personal privacy, both in terms of whether any information on the Internet could ever be considered confidential, and in terms of what type of information could be considered strictly private. Such a shortcoming suggests that faculty members proceed with due caution and seek a mechanism to reduce potential risks to students. One such potential mechanism, informed consent, will be considered next. INFORMED CONSENT Are training programs and faculty members obliged to inform students of their potential use of students information on the Internet? Standard 3.10a of the APA (2002) Ethics Code, Informed

8 GRADUATE STUDENTS ON THE INTERNET 135 Consent, states that psychologists provide informed consent to recipients of their services using language that is reasonably understandable (p. 1065). That is, they provide appropriate information beforehand about the nature of services and appropriate information later about results and conclusions. How should faculty members describe use of information discovered on the Internet to prospective students? Should students be informed at the outset regarding potential benefits and possible sources of harm? Should graduate students be made aware at the outset that personal information posted on the Internet could be used by faculty, and potentially hinder their ability to secure an internship and postdoctoral employment? A related concern is the need to avoid false or deceptive statements in advertising graduate programs in psychology. This is not only a core issue for the general principle of integrity, in which psychologists seek to promote accuracy and honesty in their services and teaching, but also outlined in standards 5.01a (Avoidance of False or Deceptive Statements) and 7.02 (Descriptions of Education and Training Programs). In advertising the criteria used in making admissions decisions, programs evaluate a student based on her or his application, which may include transcripts, GRE scores, letters of recommendation, and a personal statement. Although those reviewing prospective students applications may search or look up applicants on the Internet, as in Case 1, I suspect few institutions have informed applicants of these activities. Indeed, there appears to be a reasonable question regarding a graduate program s obligation to inform potential and current students of whether and how such information may be used. Although such thorough informed consent procedures may at first glance seem excessive and of questionable value, I believe it is important to consider what information graduate students may require to make careful and informed choices about what and how they post on the Internet. Also warranting reflection are the consequences on the student advisor relationship of using students personal information obtained through the Internet. One might suppose, for example, that if the faculty member in Case 2 were to sanction the student for the illegal activities she discovered on the student s blog even if such behavior could be defended as ethical the student may feel betrayed, deceived, and mistreated, and the relationship between the two may be irreparably harmed. Indeed, the Ethics Code s General Principle B: Fidelity and Responsibility states that psychologists establish relationships of trust with those with whom they work (APA, 2002, p. 1062); without proper communication, the student may perceive the advisor s actions as overstepping her professional role and to be a violation of trust. Informed consent procedures regarding discovery and use of personal information via the Internet could be used from the outset to prevent such a breakdown of trust in the relationship. AUTONOMY There is an increasing awareness that making personal information available through the Internet is part of the social fabric of graduate students lives (Behnke, 2007). Principle E: Respect for People s Rights and Dignity of the Ethics Code states that psychologists respect the rights of individuals to self-determination (APA, 2002). Thus, it is important to respect the autonomous rights of students to participate in Internet-related activities, including dating profiles, blogs and online journals, and personal Web sites. Although student autonomy and independence should be respected, it is important to recognize that self-determination is limited by students social context. Proportionally more Whites have

9 136 LEHAVOT Internet access than African Americans and Hispanics (Howard et al., 2002; Jones, 2002), and the percentage of women using the Internet still slightly lags behind the percentage of men, especially among older women (Fallows, 2005). Although these demographic gaps are decreasing, some predict that remaining gaps in access will be defined by income and age differences with the poor, especially in rural areas, and the elderly continuing to lag behind (Howard et al., 2002). Given unequal access to the Internet, at least prior to graduate school, an obvious ethical issue concerns the fact that some applicants and students will have information posted on the Internet, whereas others will not. Principle E of the APA Ethics Code directs psychologists to guard against unfair discrimination based on age, gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language, and socioeconomic status (APA, 2002, p. 1063). This raises questions regarding using information online to facilitate an applicant s acceptance into a program. For example, in Case 1, the faculty member may be more impressed with applicants whose research is advertised or published online compared to those who have no information online, or, alternatively, with an applicant who has designed a notable personal Web site. If students are pursued or accepted into training programs by faculty who use information in this way, such that specific categories of students are less likely to be in a position of access, then questions arise concerning discrimination and unfair treatment. In this way, it is essential for graduate training programs to deliberate on how they use students online information. Indeed, it is imperative for the profession, and graduate psychology training programs in particular, to ensure nondiscrimination with respect to entry into their programs. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS As illustrated in Case 3, graduate students personal lives on the Internet are subject not only to the eyes of faculty members but to clients as well. Although there are no data on the frequency with which clients search for their therapists on the Internet, it is likely that such searches will only increase in the future as the Internet continues to grow and evolve. Indeed, one study found that 31% of respondents younger than the age of 60 reported using computers at home to obtain health information, and of those who had access to the Internet at home, over half reported using it to obtain health related information (Brodie et al., 2000). A more recent survey found that 8 in 10 Internet users have looked online for health information, including information on particular doctors and health-care professionals (Fox, 2005). In our work with clients, psychologists strive to exercise beneficence and minimize harm. As such, therapists should reflect upon the information they place on the Internet and the plausible consequences on clients and their treatment. Is there a high probability that the disclosure will be discovered by clients? Will clients be significantly and negatively affected? Does the disclosure threaten the credibility of the psychologist or the field of psychology? Specifically, the Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists (Canadian Psychological Association, 2000) states that personal behavior becomes a concern of the discipline when it is of such a nature that it undermines public trust in the discipline as a whole (Preamble, Relationship of Code to Personal Behavior). As such, it seems reasonable for training programs to require student therapists to use discretion when placing highly personal information on the Internet that may be easily discovered and undermine their credibility or the public s trust in the profession.

10 GRADUATE STUDENTS ON THE INTERNET 137 It seems clear that in Case 3, the student therapist did not fully consider the implications of disclosure about his affair or the possibility that his client would gain access to the information. Of course, the client could have obtained such information through a non-internet source: for example, a friend of hers ran into her therapist and his paramour at a party and reported back to the client. However, the likelihood of discovering the information with the anonymous ease of an Internet search engine is much higher and likely more common. If the student therapist had considered this, he would have balanced his personal wishes ( I want to write about my affair in my online blog ) against his professional judgment ( My client is struggling with her partner s affair and discovery of my own behavior might interfere with therapy ), which may call for engaging in responsible online behavior and sacrificing personal choice (e.g., using a pseudonym, writing anonymously, or restricting access). Thus, the therapist s autonomy may be restricted by considering the impact on the client, the course of treatment, the therapeutic relationship, and the public s perception of the profession. RECOMMENDATIONS My discussion of the unique ethical dilemmas posed by graduate students on the Internet suggests the need for some attention and response on the part of training program faculty and students. Next, I offer several suggestions that faculty members and students should explore. I offer these recommendations in the hope of developing a system that will explore the ethical dimensions of this dilemma. Recommendations for Faculty First, I recommend that graduate programs establish policies for evaluating whether prospective students can and should be looked up on the Internet as part of the decision-making process. The process by which graduate school admission decisions are made is qualitatively different from that used for undergraduate admissions (Lindsay, 2007). Graduate school applications are initially screened to ensure that they are complete and that the applicant meets minimum standards (as per undergraduate applications), but after that they are passed on to academic departments and subsequently to individual faculty members identified as potential advisors. It is crucial to recognize that the primary decision maker is usually an individual faculty member (with decisions sometimes appraised by a small committee of faculty members). I am aware of no concentrated attempt on the part of a psychology department to screen and monitor faculty members looking up applicants online and using this information in their evaluative decision-making process. Creating policies to discuss and standardize this issue within a department would ensure uniformity, or at the very least standards, as to whether and how faculty should use students online personal information. Second, I recommend that training programs pay specific attention to the information they advertise will be evaluated in considering applicants. In particular, if a department decides that faculty members should be allowed to use online information in their decision to accept or reject an applicant, a notice should be put in program materials stating this is so. For example, a program might state that information available on the Internet about the applicant may potentially be used as part of the criteria in making admissions decisions, perhaps acknowledged under the department s Frequently Asked Questions or other promotional materials. Indeed, there is reasonable

11 138 LEHAVOT concern that applicants should be informed regarding whether and how such information could be used. Doing so would inform prospective applicants about how admissions decisions are made, which may allow them to make more reasoned decisions about making online disclosures as well as about investing the time and effort involved in applying to graduate programs. Third, once an applicant has been accepted into a program, faculty should discuss the risks associated with posting on the Internet and how the information could be used within the program with the student. This could take place as a conversation between advisors and their students, or as part of incoming students program orientation. Ideally, such conversations would foster trust and honesty between faculty and students, and prevent unforeseeable ethical dilemmas that may later occur during the graduate student s career. For clinical students, potential implications of posting personal information online that clients may access should be discussed and explored, perhaps during the student s orientation, clinical training, and in conversations with clinical faculty and supervisors. This may be seen as part of a process that supports students in developing their professional identity and roles. Finally, when faced with the dilemma of whether and how to use a student s personal information discovered on the Internet, I suggest faculty consider the following guiding questions to help determine their decision: (a) How was the information obtained? (b) Does the student have a reasonable expectation of privacy? (c) Does the information bear on the student s competence or ability to participate in the program? (d) What are the benefits and costs of using or disclosing the information? (e) What are the implications for my relationship with the student? (f) How does the information bear on the student s social context, for example, race, age, socioeconomic status, and gender? Note that answers to these questions do not provide an automatic categorization as to what decision or course of action should be taken; rather, they provide a framework to help think about the factors that may influence how a student s online personal information may be handled. Recommendations for Graduate Students When posting information online, students should also reflect on the implications of their disclosures on fellow students and colleagues, faculty, and clients. Specifically, students may ask themselves the following questions: (a) What are the costs and benefits of posting the information? (b) Is there a high probability that classmates, faculty members, or clients will be significantly and negatively affected? (c) How will the disclosure affect my relationship with my classmates, advisor, and clients? (d) Does the disclosure threaten my credibility or undermine the public s trust in the field of psychology? Whenever possible, graduate students should use privacy protection measures to protect personal information they post on the Internet that they do not wish to be discovered or used for professional purposes. For example, many popular sites allow users to make their profiles or online journals available only to preapproved individuals. Further, many bloggers use a pseudonym to keep their offline life separate from their online thoughts. In fact, a bit more than half of bloggers (55%) say they blog under a pseudonym or made-up name, whereas 43% say they blog using their real name (Lenhart & Fox, 2006). While such restrictions may impinge on one s complete freedom online, they seem like sensible precautions to take to protect one s privacy and avoid future conflict.

12 GRADUATE STUDENTS ON THE INTERNET 139 SUMMARY The Internet has boomed over the past decade, developing into a popular communication medium. More recently, personal disclosures on the Internet have become increasingly relevant for today s graduate students, who view the Internet as an element of their everyday lives. Indeed, in an investigation of the kind of Web sites that are particularly appealing to students, data by a Web-tracking firm revealed that LiveJournal, an online personal journal service, had its highest composition of visitors (20%) from the university audience (Rainie, Kalehoof, & Hess, 2002). Given such rising importance of the Internet, the primary focus of this article was to examine ethical concerns associated with graduate students personal information on the Internet, namely, the protection of privacy, use of informed consent, consideration of autonomy, and implications for one s clinical work. These matters represent recurrent ethical concerns that graduate programs in psychology, faculty members, and graduate students must address in the unique context of the Internet as students social and personal forum. The Ethics Code (APA, 2002) can serve as a roadmap to navigating the ethical dilemmas that may arise in the Internet age. Although the Ethics Code may be limited in some ways, such as not making direct reference to online issues and dilemmas or not defining privacy per se, it is not intended to provide specific guidance on every possible situation a psychologist may be confronted with. Indeed, the Ethics Code guards against a set of rigid rules that might be quickly outdated (p. 1061). Moreover, the Ethics Code pertains to all roles of psychologists across a variety of contexts, such as in person, postal, telephone, Internet, and other electronic transmissions (p. 1061). While this quote applies to our professional role as psychologists, there are instances, as we have seen, where the personal and professional collide, circumstances under which the Ethics Code can provide guidance. Thus, the Ethics Code s principles and standards appear adequate and applicable to current-day online dilemmas, when thoughtfully applied. It is incumbent on faculty and students alike to actively consider the potential ethical problems associated with disclosures via the Internet. I recommend increased attention to this matter both within and among graduate programs in psychology for the purpose of decreasing the potential for harm to applicants, students, student advisor relationships, and clients. It is crucial that faculty sensitize students to the implications of Internet disclosures on their professional roles and on the public s view and trust of the profession of psychology. Indeed, one might argue that becoming a professional brings with it certain responsibilities and obligations. For example, precedent for this is seen in rural practice, where psychologists must consider the impact of their public behavior on the public s view of them as psychologists and as representatives of the profession of psychology (e.g., Campbell & Gordon, 2003; Faulkner & Faulkner, 1997). Moreover, there is a salient need for discussion within graduate programs as to how online information should be handled, leading to informed consent procedures with both prospective and current students. I hypothesize that such measures and dialogue will lead to fewer ethical problems and allow graduate students to continue to cultivate their personal growth and socialize on the Internet in a safe and well-informed way. REFERENCES American Psychological Association. (2002). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct. American Psychologist, 57,

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