Coaching With Social Media: The Coach–Athlete Performance Team

The purpose of this research was to explore coaches’ perceptions of athletes’ social media use. There has not been a thorough examination of social media’s effects on coaches or the consequences of social media for meaningful relations between coach and athlete. This is an important area to investigate because previous literature suggests that social media has psychological ramifications that influence athletes’ behavior; that athletes may not be aware of, or understand, the implications that social media may have; and that athletes do not realize that social media platforms have an effect on their mental game in sport performance. Given that the coach–athlete relationship is important to sport-performance success, it is important to examine coaches’ perspectives on social media’s influence on athletes. Accordingly, a phenomenological approach was utilized to understand this experience. Semistructured interviews were conducted with six high-performance coaches of a variety of individual sports. The interviews underwent a phenomenological-analysis sequence to coconstruct meaning from the data and explore the topic. Although there is limited research on the topic of social media’s impact on coaches, research has recognized that athletes’ preoccupation with social media is a perceived challenge for coaches. The findings from the present study illustrate how coaches observe social media influencing their athletes’ behaviors, the persuasive qualities of social media, and how young athletes navigate their image on social media.