Author(s): Thanyalak Boonlue, Prateep Peuchthonglang
The objectives of this research were 1) to study the construction of social space and the presentation of self-ethical identity on social media among Thai youth, 2) to develop a psychological training program to enhance the ethical skill of social media usage for Thai youth, and 3) to propose methods in promoting Thai youth to create a social space and present their self-ethical identity appropriately and ethically. A mixed-methods approach was applied in this study. Purposive sampling was used to select the participants which included 62 university students who had taken the general courses in the second semester of 2021, then completed the questionnaires and go through an in-depth semi structured interview. In addition, there were 64 university students who participated in an operational training for enhancing an ethical skill of social media usage for Thai youth voluntarily. The questionnaires, the in-depth semi structured interviews, and an operational training program were used to collect data from the participants which were analyzed using content analysis and the SPSS software (version 26). The research results showed that majority of the participants posted or commented about the social injustice from their own stories but most of them never posted or commented about race, culture, gender, sexual orientation, religion, social class, and their own needs. In addition, most of the participants had good knowledge, understanding of things, and behaved properly. Moreover, the mean scores of an ethical skill of social media usage of participants before and after attending the operational training program were significantly different at 0.01 level. This research has provided a deeper insight into social media usage among Thai youth. The findings of this research will be useful as guidelines for teaching, learning and counseling to promote Thai youth to show their self-ethical identity creatively and appropriately.