Safe Social Networking For Student Nurses

Social networking is evolving faster than ever and is becoming a powerful tool in society. Along with this power come many opportunities and risks.

This essay explores the definition of internet-based social networking and the opportunities and risks associated with social networking for student nurses. The essay will conclude with recommendations directed at student nurses for safe social networking.

Social networking is the act in which an individual uses internet-based sites in order to create a profile to share, connect or obtain information with other users. Usually occurs among people with a common interest, background, or to build new or existing relationships (Green, Wyllie & Jackson, 2014). Social networking consists of three main

Under principle 7.13 in the code of conduct for nurses it states that the nurse must ensure that they uphold the professional boundary between themselves and the health consumer (NCNZ, 2012b). The risk that social networking poses for student nurses in this sense, is the unintended or deliberate blurring of personal and professional boundaries. With student nurses in their first few placements they get a lot of time to sit and talk to patients. Here they may make such a connection that perhaps later when the patient is discharged they add the nurse on Facebook. As Balzer-Riley (2012) said, “without the benefit of nonverbal clues and body language, the written word can be more easily misunderstood,” (p.77). This meaning that although the student nurse may accept the friend request to see how the patient’s recovery goes it could be mistaken for more than it really

This will help prevent misuse of social networking. A great approach to using social networking with caution is to presume that anything you put on social networking will be read and seen by everyone, in particular the individuals you don’t want setting eyes on it (Prinz, 2011). In addition, reading the Nursing Council’s ‘guidelines for nurses on social media’ (2012d) especially standard 6.4 which revolves around not discussing colleagues on social media will help in understanding what you should and should not put on social networking sites. Another recommendation for using social networking safely is to be aware of what privacy settings you have in place to protect your social content. On sites such as Facebook, make sure that your privacy settings are on ‘friends only’. This is to stop anybody and everybody viewing what you post. However, student nurses must remember that they leave a ‘digital footprint’ which is created from their social networking use (O’Keeffe & Clarke-Pearson, 2011). This meaning that everything you put on social networking sites no matter how high your privacy levels are or if you delete it, it will still exist somewhere in cyber space and individuals may still be able to assess it (“Social networks,”