Using Facebook to Identify Potential Problem Drinkers, Is It Ever Justified?

Author: Terri Williams

Date: July 24, 2017

Link: https://www.digitalethics.org/essays/using-facebook-identify-potential-problem-drinkers-it-ever-justified

First Impression: By looking at the title, the essay most likely talks about how Social Media, or Facebook, could help identify people who often post online about drinking with friends and make assumptions on their current status on what they can do to prevent these people from doing harm or causing chaos  to different students in the campus. But the only problem I think would be the subject’s privacy.

Quote: “The symptoms of an Alcohol Use Disorder include the inability to stop drinking or reduce alcohol consumption, forgoing other activities to drink, having memory blackouts, engaging in risky activities as a result of drinking, needing to drink more to obtain the desired effect and experiencing withdrawal symptoms.”

Reflection:

Social Media is a powerful tool for retrieving different people’s information by just entering their name on a search bar. For example, just by searching for your friend’s name on Facebook gives you all the related information about him, even for people who have the same name as your friend, this emphasizes that Social Media sites is a powerful tool for gathering information. Some people gather information online for good purposes such as gathering data of different problem drinkers, for them to be able to help these people put an end to problem drinking. I think that this isn’t a good option to choose when determining if a person is a problem drinker, since a persons personality could not be proven through posts in his social media account and this violates a person’s privacy. It is like you are judging the person of who he is based on what he posts online. Like me, there are people who have a different life outside of social media and are far from who they are based on their posts online. 

5 Things I Learned

1. Do use people’s data against them or harm them in any way.

2. We can not assume who a person is based on social media.

3. People are not aware of the consequences of posting too much information about themselves.

4. Colleges in different parts of the world use social media as a tool of validation to have second thoughts on an applicant.

5. We should not make judgements based on photos.

5 Integrative Questions

1. Are social media accounts soon to be a requirement when creating a resume?

2. Does a person’s social media account reflect on who they are in real life?

3. Is social media account information required when applying for a job?

4. Nowadays, which shows more of who a person is? The content he shares online or who he is in real life?

5. What are people trying to say when they post information in their social media?