Despite the growing popularity of social media as a viable means for communication and information gathering during natural disasters, the effects of social media information on the effectiveness of crisis management teams are unclear. Drawing on collective information processing perspectives, we examine the beneficial and detrimental effects of distributing social media information to team members on team situation awareness and team performance. We conducted a laboratory experiment with 65 simulated fire and rescue teams (260 participants) randomly assigned to either a high (where all members have access to social media information) or low (where members only have access to role-specific social media information) information distribution conditions. Results indicated that information load not only mediated the negative indirect relationship between information distribution conditions and team situational awareness, but also suppressed the positive direct relationship between information distribution conditions and team situation awareness. Information load and team situation awareness sequentially mediated the negative indirect effect of information distribution conditions on team performance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
