The use of social media by access workers is a hot topic. Many organizations are looking at this new trend and weighing the pros and the cons of jumping onboard. These debates are similar to the arguments that happened when the Internet was first introduced. Some groups became early adopters and other organizations resisted until they were forced into the technology. The same is true with social media. Many of the concerns about safety, privacy, cost, value for money, acceptable use, and safeguarding the reputation of the organization, are exactly the same ones once used to delay creating a website in the 1990s. Likewise, many of the reasons used to justify having a website also apply to having a presence on social media.

Social Media represents a range of communications tools that are used on the Internet that enable people to self publish and interact with each other. A web page is a static document that broadcasts information. An email is an exchange between two people or a person and a list of recipients they have copied on the message. Conversely, tool such as Blogs (web logs), Facebook, and Twitter, enable content to be broadcast, shared, and allow interaction by content subscribers. Increasingly, people are accessing social media without using their computer. These services are popular on data enabled cell phones (smart phones). Recent stats show that some youth access social media many times per day.