This paper examines how police communication on social media affects public confidence in the police and subjective well-being. Drawing on a large-scale online experiment, participants are randomly exposed to real Instagram content posted by English police forces or to neutral content.

The study distinguishes between three types of police communication: enforcement outcomes, community engagement, and requests for public assistance. The findings show that exposure to police content increases confidence in the police and support for policing, including through an incentivised donation task. At the same time, it leads to substantial immediate decreases in self-reported happiness.

Interestingly, the effects vary considerably across content types. Community-engagement posts generate confidence gains comparable to enforcement-focused posts, while producing substantially smaller negative effects on well-being. Overall, the paper highlights a striking trade-off in police communication on social media: communication can strengthen public confidence, but may come at a considerable cost to individual well-being.