Alert Fatigue & Information Hygiene
Keeping a clear head when everything feels urgent
The most common security failure isn't a hack — it's a well-meaning person sharing bad information quickly because it felt urgent.
The Urgency Problem
We live in an environment designed to produce urgency. Push notifications, breaking news banners, forwarded messages marked "IMPORTANT" — the infrastructure of modern communication trains us to react before we think.
This matters for security culture because misinformation travels fastest when people are alarmed. A panicked message forwarded through a community group chat moves faster than a thoughtful correction. A rumor about a school threat spreads through parent networks before anyone verifies it. An alarming headline gets shared before anyone reads past the title.
Alert fatigue — the numbing that comes from constant urgent signals — makes this worse. When everything is urgent, nothing is. People either react to everything (spreading noise) or tune out entirely (missing real concerns).
What Information Hygiene Looks Like
Information hygiene is the practice of being intentional about what you consume, what you believe, and what you pass along. It's a core digital literacy skill, and within security culture, it has direct consequences for community safety.
Before You Share, Ask:
- Where did this come from? Can you trace it to a primary source?
- Who benefits from me sharing this? Does spreading this information help the people I care about, or does it just increase anxiety?
- Is this verified? Has anyone with direct knowledge confirmed it?
- Is this mine to share? Does sharing this expose someone who didn't consent to the exposure?
- Does this need to be shared now? Would waiting an hour change anything?
These aren't just media literacy questions. In a security culture context, they're also questions about care — am I being careful with the attention and emotional energy of the people around me?
Rumor Control as Community Care
Every community develops informal information networks. Parent groups, staff chats, neighborhood channels — these spaces are valuable for coordination and connection. They're also where rumors do the most damage.
A school example: A parent hears from another parent that there was "an incident" at school. They share it in the parent group chat. Within an hour, the thread has 40 messages, multiple versions of what happened, and several families are anxious. The actual event was minor and already resolved.
The harm here isn't malicious. It's structural. The group chat amplified uncertainty into anxiety because no one paused to verify before sharing.
What helps:
- Designated sources: Communities can agree on who provides official information about certain topics. "For school safety questions, we wait for communication from the front office."
- Slow-down norms: "If it's not confirmed, we say 'I heard X but haven't verified it' instead of stating it as fact."
- Space for correction: When misinformation spreads, it should be easy and normal to say "that turned out to be inaccurate" without embarrassment.
Urgency Skepticism
Urgency skepticism isn't cynicism. It's the practiced habit of pausing before reacting to something that demands immediate action.
Most genuine emergencies don't arrive through group chats. When something truly urgent happens, there are usually official channels, direct communications, and verifiable sources. The messages that pressure you to "ACT NOW" or "SHARE THIS IMMEDIATELY" are almost always better served by a pause.
A useful mental model: Real urgency narrows your options. False urgency narrows your thinking. If a message makes you feel like you must act before you can think, that's usually a sign to slow down, not speed up.
This applies to:
- Forwarded warnings about scams or threats
- "Time-sensitive" requests from unknown sources
- Emotional appeals that discourage verification
- Messages that frame skepticism as disloyalty
The Literacy Connection
Information hygiene is where security culture meets traditional media literacy. The same skills that help students evaluate a news article — checking sources, identifying bias, recognizing emotional manipulation — are the skills that keep communities safe from misinformation cascades.
For educators, this is familiar territory. The difference is framing: we're not just teaching students to be better readers. We're teaching communities to be better communicators — people who care enough about the group to pause, verify, and share responsibly.
| Media Literacy Skill | Security Culture Application |
|---|---|
| Source evaluation | Tracing information to primary sources before sharing |
| Bias recognition | Noticing when urgency is manufactured |
| Fact-checking | Verifying claims before forwarding to community channels |
| Emotional awareness | Recognizing when fear is driving sharing behavior |
Building Sustainable Habits
Information hygiene isn't about being perfect. It's about building habits that hold up under pressure:
- Pause before forwarding. Even ten seconds makes a difference.
- Name your uncertainty. "I saw this but haven't confirmed it" is always better than presenting rumors as facts.
- Curate your inputs. If a source consistently produces anxiety without useful information, mute or leave it.
- Rest. Alert fatigue is real. Stepping away from information streams isn't avoidance — it's maintenance.
Foundational Concepts
- Privacy is Power Not Secrecy — Controlling information flow protects agency
- Embracing Uncertainty as Strength — Comfort with not-knowing as a skill
Related
- Security Culture as Digital Literacy — The parent grove
- Group Architecture & Trust — How group structure affects information flow
- Ephemeral Communication & Information Half-Life — Not all information needs to persist
- Threat Modeling for Communities — Understanding what actually needs attention
- Digital Resilience — Sustaining clear thinking over time
The best thing you can do for your community's safety is slow down before you hit share.