Distress and rumor exposure on social media during a campus lockdown

Data were collected using a Qualtrics survey software link emailed on the researchers’ behalf by the university administration to all enrolled students 7 days after the shooting. Students reported their distress about the lockdown by responding to items on a standardized multi-item measure of acute stress (21). Respondents also indicated the communication channels from which they acquired information and critical updates during the lockdown, including direct contact from close others (e.g., phone calls and texts from friends and/or family), traditional media (e.g., radio, television, online news), and social media (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, Instagram). For every communication channel students used, they reported how much they trusted it for critical updates about the shooting and lockdown. To capture exposure to rumors during the lockdown, students reported the overall extent to which they received conflicting information about the details of the lockdown across all communication channels they used.

Results indicated that exposure to conflicting information was associated with acute stress related to the lockdown, after controlling for several relevant covariates (Table 1). Traditional media use was not associated with acute stress, but direct contact with close others and social media use were each associated with greater acute stress. We then examined whether trust in these communication channels moderated their respective relations with distress. No moderating effect was found for trust in direct contact with close others. However, greater acute stress was reported by heavy social media users who trusted social media for critical updates (Fig. 1). In addition, students who acquired critical updates via text messages from close others or via Twitter reported increased exposure to conflicting information compared to those who did not rely on these channels (Table 2).

Because students in this first study who used Twitter reported increased exposure to conflicting information, in study 2 we examined the time course of community-level rumor generation and virality (i.e., degree to which rumors were circulated) among a subset of Twitter users who followed two official university Twitter accounts. Using R (22), we connected to Twitter via its Application Programming Interface (API) on the day of the lockdown and downloaded a list of the most recent 13,000 public followers of the university’s primary and emergency response Twitter accounts. Two weeks later, we downloaded the most recent 200 tweets from each follower. Because tweets were time-stamped, we constrained our analysis to tweets generated in the hour leading up to the initial 911 call until the second hour after the lockdown was lifted, segmenting time into 15-min blocks. Each tweet in this frame was tagged if it contained a rumor, defined as a statement verified to be blatantly false following the incident. To capture community-level distress about the lockdown, we devised an R script to automatically tag tweets referencing the lockdown incident (for a similar method, see ref. 23) and those containing negative emotion words using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Counter (LIWC) negative emotion dictionary (24). For example, tweets about the lockdown that also contained words such as “distress” or “afraid” were tagged to reflect event-related negative emotions. Tagging tweets in this way allowed us to calculate a count of rumor tweets, as well as calculate the proportion of tweets with event-related negative emotions in each 15-min segment over time. We then overlaid the official campus alerts sent to all university students during the same time frame (Table S1).

Within the corpus of tweets generated around the lockdown time frame (Fig. 2), 38 rumors were identified (M_{retweet count} = 179, SD = 427; min = 0, max = 2,299). Viral rumors (i.e., those retweeted most frequently) involved descriptions of a nonexistent white male suspect and his movements. Other rumors involved claims of multiple deaths and warnings of multiple shooters at several locations on campus (Table 3). As depicted in Fig. 2, the bulk of rumors were generated during the 90-min gap in communication from campus officials after the first lockdown alert and continued consistently until a second campus alert was disseminated to remind students about the lockdown. Although the number of rumors decreased after the second alert, the virality of the few rumors that were generated in the time block after a third alert (again regarding the lockdown) far exceeded any rumor tweet in the preceding blocks (Fig. 3). It is not clear why the rumors in this block went viral, but it might have been due to more people becoming aware of the situation and wanting to pass information on to others. Although we cannot directly link them together, event-related negative emotions tracked almost identically with rumor virality consistently across time (Fig. 3). These findings suggest that the virality of rumors may be implicated in the transmission of distress during a crisis.

Prior research on rumors demonstrates that situational ambiguity, high importance, and anxiety are necessary conditions for rumor generation (2–4). Consistent with this work, our findings indicate that during crisis events, when critical updates from official channels are irregular, rumors proliferate. Individuals who are caught in the path of a crisis event are often left feeling helpless and without situational control (25), which can lead people to see patterns in the information obtained that are not present (e.g., via illusory pattern perception; ref. 26). In addition, situational stress may interfere with information processing via inhibited executive functioning (e.g., working memory, self-regulation processes; ref. 27). Taken together, these effects may diminish the myriad cognitive processes necessary for scrutinizing the veracity of unique and repeated information (28), such as content propagated on social media platforms during a crisis. This causal chain likely plays a role in increasing the potency of rumor exposure during potentially threatening and ambiguous crisis situations.

To mitigate this problem, we offer several recommendations. First, emergency officials should disseminate frequent updates to the affected population, in real time. In the context of a school shooting, repeated alerts have been found to increase the perception of urgency among participants who received them (29), a factor necessary for eliciting swift and appropriate action. Although we cannot explicitly test whether more frequent updates from official channels would have mitigated rumors and distress using the data we collected, crisis communication scholars posit that regular communications from emergency management officials are essential for mitigating uncertainty and rumors after a crisis (30). For example, as part of their response to a mass shooting at a shopping mall in Munich, Germany, local police urged the public via press conferences and social media to resist speculation about the attack and directly addressed rumors on social media as they became aware of them (31). Despite false reports of additional shootings in the city and the overall lack of clarity about what was happening during the citywide lockdown, police chose to maintain transparency and constant contact with the public throughout the ordeal, a strategy likely appreciated by the public (32). Had the Munich police remained silent, however, the budding rumors about shootings in other city locations would have likely filled the information void. As communities learn to manage active shooter crises and other emergencies, crisis communications like those employed by the Munich police department will be prudent to put in place.

Second, critical updates disseminated to the public should include new information, when possible. However, when new information is not available, updates should be tailored to reduce situational uncertainty (33), thereby mitigating distress and rumors (30). Additionally, emergency management officials should attempt to counter the impact of rumors that arise during crisis situations by monitoring social media channels and encouraging individuals to keep a healthy skepticism about information coming from unofficial channels.

Furthermore, we believe the news media, which play a critical role in informing the public during crisis events (30), must share the responsibility for disseminating accurate information. The importance of this point is illustrated by the examples of conspiracy theories propagated on social media (and other channels) that resonate with individuals psychologically attuned to alternative narratives (34). Although seemingly benign, conspiracy theories can lead people to deny that acts of horror, like the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, occurred at all. Consequently, denial narratives born from inconsistencies in news reporting can directly and negatively impact the individuals in communities devastated by these events (35).

Although we examined the correlates of unofficial communication-channel use in our analyses in study 1, we acknowledge the important role of official channel use during a crisis. Unfortunately, because 96% of respondents in our sample indicated consulting official channels, and roughly 92% indicated trusting these channels somewhat or strongly, the lack of variation precluded our ability to include these variables in our statistical models. Also, we are unable to determine whether participants actively sought—or were passively exposed to—information from different channels. During the lockdown, participants may have sought information (especially during the 90-min gap in communication from campus officials) by accessing news sites and social media, or they might have sent text messages to friends and family to see if they knew any details. However, students could have simultaneously received unsolicited messages via social media or text during this event, in which case their receipt of information could be considered passive. An additional limitation of study 1 was that data collection occurred retrospectively (albeit soon after the event), and we did not employ real-time data collection methods during the lockdown (e.g., ecological momentary assessment), which would have been valuable for assessing exposure to conflicting information and distress responses. To compensate for this, we collected archival Twitter data—before, during, and after the lockdown—from thousands of users in study 2, providing supplemental data that occurred in real time. This supplemental analysis of Twitter data fostered additional depth to our understanding of the crisis event we studied.

Exposure to rumors and conflicting information that arise out of the ambiguity of a crisis may have negative consequences for the people who receive and believe them. Moreover, the extent to which people trust the channels through which unofficial and conflicting information flow may exacerbate distress. Rumor generation during ambiguous crisis events is certain to continue. Therefore, social scientists should study the psychological impact of rumor exposure using methodological triangulation to understand the dynamic contextual features of and community responses to these events. Doing so will help to better elucidate the function and impact of crisis-related communications, or the lack thereof, on distress responses. Science on crisis communications and the media can be an ally in this challenging set of tasks.

We thank Maryann J. Gray, E. Alison Holman, and Dana Rose Garfin for their valuable input at the onset of study 1 and Carly Steinberger for her efforts coding tweets in study 2. We also thank Azim Shariff for his comments on an earlier version of this paper.