Focus: Social media psychology

Is social media the new goldmine for mental health assessments? While a lot of therapies rely on self-reporting, social media have turned out to be beneficial for psychologists as everything is stored, and looking through a patient’s behavioural online pattern can help predict a new episode. However, critics argue that it is unethical and against privacy as well as the fact that the way we behave on the internet is not necessarily how we would in real life.

The focus of this week’s debate is on social media and whether psychologists should use social media to monitor their patients?

These are the statements to be debated:

• Using social media to monitor a patient’s behavioural pattern is against his or her privacy.

• Examining posting patterns could provide valuable information about the health of a patient and predict a new episode.

• Poor judgment on social media doesn’t necessarily equal poor judgment in real life.

Participants will be required to clearly state whether they are ‘for’ or ‘against’ the statement and provide their supporting arguments for the same.

If you would like to participate, send us a request at readers@gulfnews.com