Reflecting on the ethical implications of social media use

This week’s topic discussed the use of social media for educational and business use and the ethical issues which can arise from such use. This week produced a variety of posts; with some students deciding to focus solely on just one of the elements of the question; educational or business use. Because this topic is so vast, arguably the word count limit this week perhaps meant that students did not feel they could cover both elements of the question. I found condensing everything I wished to discuss into one post particularly challenging, and tried to use probing questions to encourage discussions with my peers so we could discuss the topic in further detail.

One topic which was discussed by my peers which I didn’t cover in my post and particularly interested me was the ethical issue of cyber bullying between employees, and companies duty of care on social media to avoid this (as featured on Caroline’s blog). Having read into this subject further, I found this link to be of interest discussing some of the implications of cyber bullying – such as increased absenteeism, lower productivity and greater employee turnover. Clearly, cyber bullying online between employees can have major implications for businesses and their use of social media, and this is something where clear company policies need to be established in order to minimise the occurrence of such damaging behaviour.

I found the most enjoyable part of this topic was the Twitter discussions I had this week with my peers. One of the questions I asked using the #UOSM2008 was ‘if you’re not using social media, are you missing out?’, and it was really interesting to see how the conversation developed – discussing online presence, intelligence, awareness and the future of employability. I found this form of discussion, although short, to be much faster moving than blog comments – and I hope a similar discussion can occur on the next topic.

I maintain my argument that clear universal guidelines for the educational use of social media need to be established in order to help address the ethical issues which can be presented, such as addressing the issue of pupils and teachers connecting with each other on social media. Whilst each business differs, I also think it should become compulsory for companies to establish social media policies applicable to the company. This should clearly define acceptable and unacceptable behaviours from employees, and how the company will use social media information, in order to reduce the ethical implications business use of social media may cause.