Crime in your area: Use of neighborhood apps is associated with inaccurate perceptions of higher local crime rates

 "Crime in your area: Use of neighborhood apps is associated with inaccurate perceptions of higher local crime rates," Psychology of Popular Media, January 2023

Abstract:

Neighborhood apps provide real-time updates about events within communities, including crime. Prior work suggests that exposure to media related to crime can have a biasing effect on people's perceptions of actual crime rates, likely because of the availability heuristic. In two studies (N = 799), we investigated how neighborhood app use impacts perceptions of local crime rates. Participants reported whether they used neighborhood apps or not, and made judgments about local crime rates. As predicted, participants who reported using neighborhood apps perceived local crime rates as higher than those who do not use the apps, independent of actual crime rates. These results have important implications for theory and application. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

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