The paper studies the psychological characteristics of social fears of the Russian citizens in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the peculiarities of the pandemic in Russia lies in the reinforcement of fear by mass media in hourly broadcasted news about the speed of the spread of the coronavirus, the severity of the disease and the high mortality rate instead of the encouraging statistic of recovery rate and the most effective prevention measures. Given the global nature of the process of informatization in the modern world, people have virtually no place to hide from the information that affects them and causes fear, which leads to failure of the protective mechanisms and acts as an obstacle both to achieving the goals set by a person and to preserving the health. This process is accompanied by characteristic psychophysiological changes that affect the cognitive sphere and prevent psychological regulation of the mental state in an emotionally stressful situation. The purpose of the study lies in the understanding of the psychological features of fear in conditions of forced self-isolation due to COVID-19. The main hypothesis of the study is based on the assumption that there are differences in the characteristics of social fears among the Russian citizens influenced and not influenced by the information and news feed about COVID-19. Method of research: we use a questionnaire survey, which allows us to quickly and effectively investigate the level of involvement of the Russian citizens in the content of the news feed about COVID-19; a questionnaire “Social fears” to identify the level of social fears associated with the fears of failure and defeat, rejection and suppression, loss, communication and independence; and the method of determining the dominant state of DS-8 in order to identify the dominant mental states. The paper deals with theoretical and methodological aspects of the study of fears, including social ones. We conduct an empirical study of the psychological characteristics of the Russian citizens’ social fears in the context of the pandemic with different levels of involvement in the information and news feed about COVID-19. The study sample consists of 207 Russian citizens from 12 Russian cities. The results reveal that social fears associated with fears of failure and defeat, rejection and suppression, loss, communication, and independence are more characteristic of the citizens who are actively involved in the information and news feed about COVID-19 broadcasted in the media, and the Internet. We find a connection between the designated types of social fears and the intensity of non-equilibrium mental states, which indicates the prospects of working with social fears through regulation of non-equilibrium mental states. The authors put forward an assumption that plan preparation of a plan of psychological support for the population should include both the measures to provide psychological assistance to citizens and the practical psychological technologies for self-regulation of their mental state in conditions of social fears.