How Social Media Can Increase Stress During a Mass Emergency
Exposure to high rates of conflicting information during an emergency is linked to increased levels of stress, says new research.
Southern California researchers, Roxane Cohen Silver, professor of psychology & social behavior and doctoral student Nickolas M. Jones, looked at the hours and days after a recent "active shooter event" on an unnamed college campus and measured social media communication and the stress levels of 4,000 students who dialed up Twitter during a two-hour lockdown at school. Their findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.