Moving to high-dividend stocks during volatile market?

Hi all, new investor looking for advice. I haven't invested very much given how volatile everything is. On another post here, a user noted that investing heavily in high dividend stocks is a lower-risk strategy often used by retirees, and that strategy sounded tempting to me. It seems many well-established securities that dole out dividends are less sensitive to market fluctuations (I'm thinking IBM, HMC), which obviously would make me feel less worried about a potential crash or something while simultaneously guaranteeing a steady stream of income via dividends.

I guess I have a few questions, but any advice is greatly appreciated:

During periods of market uncertainty, it is a sound strategy to invest more heavily in high dividend stocks? For those of you heavily invested in growth stocks, do you ever consider shifting to high dividend or more stable stocks during times like this? Are there any risks to a high-dividend strategy I should know about?

Thanks in advance!