Impacts of school shooter drills on the psychological well-being of American K-12 school communities: a social media study

The toll from gun violence in American K-12 schools has escalated in the past two decades. In response, schools increasingly implement shooter drills, ranging from general lockdowns to realistic simulations. Yet broad and lasting impacts of these drills on school communities’ well-being are poorly understood. This article applies machine learning and interrupted time series analysis to 54 million social media posts, before and after drills in 114 schools across 33 states. Drill dates and locations were identified via survey, and posts were captured by geo-location, school social media following, and/or school social media group membership. Following drills, anxiety, stress, and depression increased by 39–42%, alongside increases in civic engagement (10–106%). Paired with a lack of strong evidence that drills save lives, findings suggest proactive school safety strategies may be more effective and less detrimental to mental health than current drill practices.

Mai ElSherief, Koustuv Saha, Pranshu Gupta, Shrija Mishra, Jordyn Seybolt, Jiajia Xie, Megan O'Toole, Sarah Burd-Sharps, Munmun De Choudhury