For myself and my future practice, the ethical tension of altruism is the one that makes me most uncomfortable and the one I am most hyperaware of when it comes to boundaries (Reamer, 2024). The vast majority, if not all, social workers enter this profession because of their desire to help people. This desire, unfortunately, can lead to boundary issues if the social worker is not vigilant to this. I have found myself in this tension of wanting to go above and beyond to help and needing to maintain ethical and professional boundaries. In my practicum, I had a client who was a single mother who was experiencing long-term homelessness and living in her car with her toddler, who was nonverbal and autistic. I had been trying to connect her to services for weeks, but was not successful in helping her find housing due to organizations being full or out of funds. One day, while I was at my practicum site, she emailed me and asked if I could send her money through Cash App because her son was sick and she did not have enough money to pay for his prescription. She only needed $10, which made it so difficult not to send it to her, but I knew that it would go against the NASW Code of Ethics (Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers, Section 1.06, 2024). I explained the Code of Ethics as well as the policy of my practicum site to her to help her understand that this was necessary for me to maintain a professional relationship so that I could continue to try to help her and that I would connect her to several organizations that could offer her prescription and medical assistance for her son. Though I wish it could be different, I do unfortunately agree with Reamer (2024) on this particular topic. Offering money and emotional support outside of office hours blurs the lines of professional relationships and can become a slippery slope to poor boundaries and inappropriate interactions.

The population I want to work with is students, children, and young adults in educational settings. How Screens Stole Childhood — and How to Get It Back was of particular interest to me (Haidt, 2026). I mostly agree with his framework of technoskeptism for students, specifically principle two of keeping physical literature and educators central and paramount in the classroom. As someone who is passionate about education from a social work perspective, as well as a parent of a student, and a mentor to students, I believe that 1:1 device policies are harmful, and I agree with Haidt (2026) on this. These devices allow children access to the internet, but the protective measures that are put in place on these devices can be bypassed or do not detect all potential dangers. Children can access games and sites that they should not have access to, either during instructional time or at all, which can have negative effects on their attention spans as well as impede their learning. Also, the very nature of these devices, being 1-1, does not allow the opportunity for students to learn collaboratively with their peers or engage with their teachers, which is important for their learning outcomes but also for their socioemotional development. As a mentor to middle school girls, I have seen the harmful effects of social media, as presented in Haidt & Rausch (2026). Many of them have spoken to me about the cyberbullying they have experienced on social media sites such as Snapchat and Instagram, and the feelings of anxiety, depression, and isolation. On these sites, digital interactions have real-world implications the next school day. While I understand that sites present themselves as a way for students to stay connected, I believe that these sites have missed the mark. The goal of these sites was always to market an addictive experience to children and teens to sell advertisements (Haidt & Rausch, 2026). Due to the harmful nature of these sites and their knowingly withholding evidence of harm, I do not believe that children under 18 should be allowed to create accounts on these social media sites. Sister sites should be created for children with strict protections, monitoring, and no advertisements. While I do agree with Haidt (2026) and Haidt & Rausch (2026) in the majority, I do not agree with one of the sentiments of Haidt (2026). I think it is very important for students not only to be exposed to but also to learn technology, including AI. Haidt (2026) claims that AI and social media are easy to use; I would claim that it is very complex to master. Due to the rapid rate of technological advances, there may be entire professions that do not exist today but will once this current generation of children enters the workforce. While I don’t think these skills are necessary to kindergarteners or that they should supersede learning the basics of reading, writing, and math, I do think it is something worth teaching and familiarizing students from an academic standpoint.

References

Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers. (2024). National Association of Social Workers. https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English#principles

Haidt, J. (2026, April). How screens stole childhood — and how to get it back [Video]. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_how_screens_stole_childhood_and_how_to_get_it_back

Haidt, J., & Rausch, Z. (2026). The case against social media: Seven lines of evidence. After Babel. https://substack.com/@jonathanhaidt/note/p-193691460

Reamer, F. (2024). Social Work Boundary Issues in the Digital Age: Reflections of an Ethics Expert. Advances in Social Work, 23(2), 375–391. https://doi.org/10.18060/26358