Helping students or Invasion of Privacy?

According to a University of Washington and University of Wisconsin-Madison study, Facebook posts could reveal individuals who are at risk for alcohol abuse and dependency. A team of researchers studied Facebook posts, pictures, and conversations of students who wrote about "blacking out" or engaging in other unsafe activities while drinking. Researchers brought in students with these posts on there walls and gave them a 10 item screening test to determine who was at risk for alcohol dependency. According to the results 6 out of the 10 students questioned were at risk for alcohol abuse or other alcohol related problems. Researchers proposed that leaders in the university such as RA's keep watch over their peer's Facebook pages in order to monitor their drinking activity and approach them with concerns. One suggestion that was made to help this cause was for universities to have links to the health center or to have online screening tests show up as Facebook advertisements for students who use terms such as "blacked out" on their pages.

I thought that this study was really interesting in that you can determine something as serious as alcohol dependency just by looking at pictures and posts on Facebook. However, I couldn't decide if this was a invasion of privacy, a good outreach program or maybe a little of both. Facebook does give a large insight into the lives of many of our friends and family members but is it crossing the line to search a student's Facebook page to check for alcohol abuse? In a lot of ways looking at someones Facebook page is a pretty good indicator of what kinds of activities they engage in. By posting excessive drunken pictures, post, videos etc. the individual is portraying themselves in a way that shows that they may need some professional help. But on the other hand is it really fair to have someone monitoring your activity that doesn't know you personally? I think in a lot of ways it depends. I don't agree that a university has the right to interfere in a student's personal decisions however if they could protect someone from alcohol dependency then maybe it's a good thing.