Access to and use of social media has increased throughout the United States. In parallel, information gleaned from social media is often available as part of discovery packets provided to clinicians conducting forensic evaluations. As social media continues to be a primary mode of communication, forensic evaluators are likely to grapple with decisions to use information from these sites to inform psycholegal opinions. However, professional commentary on obtaining, interpreting, and integrating data from social networking sites (SNSs) in forensic practice began only recently. There have been few empirical efforts thus far to better understand whether and how forensic mental health evaluators use SNSs to inform their opinions about various psycholegal issues. Thus, the current study sought to address this gap in the professional literature by surveying practicing forensic evaluators (N = 102) regarding their use of SNS data in civil and criminal legal contexts. Quantitative and qualitative findings from our survey are presented and discussed to provide an overview of current practices and concerns among forensic clinicians. Overall, SNSs are used with some frequency in forensic mental health assessments and are generally perceived as a useful source. Findings are integrated with previous professional commentary about Internet-based data to facilitate greater understanding of how SNS data may be best incorporated into assessments and to identify emergent legal and ethical issues when such data are included.

中文翻译：

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来自数字世界的线索：临床医生依赖社交媒体作为法医评估中的附属数据的调查。

在整个美国，对社交媒体的访问和使用都有所增加。与此同时，从社交媒体收集的信息通常作为发现数据包的一部分提供给进行法医评估的临床医生。由于社交媒体仍然是主要的沟通方式，法医评估人员可能会努力做出使用来自这些网站的信息来告知心理法律意见的决定。然而，关于在取证实践中从社交网站 (SNS) 获取、解释和整合数据的专业评论直到最近才开始。迄今为止，很少有实证工作可以更好地了解法医心理健康评估人员是否以及如何使用 SNS 来告知他们对各种心理法律问题的看法。因此，当前的研究试图通过调查执业法医评估人员（N = 102）在民事和刑事法律环境中使用 SNS 数据的情况来解决专业文献中的这一差距。呈现并讨论了我们调查的定量和定性结果，以概述法医临床医生的当前做法和关注点。总体而言，SNS 在法医心理健康评估中经常使用，并且通常被认为是有用的来源。调查结果与之前关于基于互联网的数据的专业评论相结合，以促进更好地了解如何最好地将 SNS 数据纳入评估，并在包含此类数据时确定紧急的法律和道德问题。