> It's worth noting that the study participants did not include people with diagnosed psychological ailments such as post-traumatic stress disorder. It's possible these warnings could be helpful to that subset of the population.
This caveat is large enough to drive a truck through. Trigger warnings aren't for people who prefer to avoid unpleasant experiences, they're meant for people who have involuntary and debilitating reactions to some kinds of stimulus.
Yes, considering they're expressly used to address this particular subpopulation, it's pretty much a waste of time to study these without including them. The "normal" population is pretty much the control group.
General trigger warnings are not used to address this particular subpopulation. There are medical approved techniques for people with diagnosed psychological ailments, like PTSD, but they are individualized. Psychological ailments are a very diverse set of problems with a even more diverse set of causes.
If we still try to do some general treatment for PTSD it generally comes down to reducing stress. Things like bright lights, loud noise and sudden actions are all things which are known to cause stress, which is why doctors treating PTSD patients recommend against fireworks during New Year's Eve and other national holidays. A bit different from the trigger warnings that the study explored.
> "College students are increasingly anxious," they write. "Widespread adoption of trigger warnings in syllabi may promote this trend, tacitly encouraging
students to turn to avoidance
My experience in college was that these simply apply a "chilling effect" to any and all discourse. I tended to stay more silent, lest I find retribution for voicing my opinions. I think that is pretty sad. But I guess for its proponents, this is the intended effect.
Look, I realize that conflict aversion is becoming increasingly mainstream these days, but the single most valuable lesson you can take away from higher education is that everyone (including you) can be wrong, and that's completely okay. The thing that makes what we academically "know" so special is we've refined our understandings such that as many inconsistencies have fallen off through intellectual challenge and empirical proof that what is left has some modicum of predictive power.
That can't happen without speaking out. It's okay to disagree. There is no more demonstrative state of our own capacity for ignorance than being in disagreement with someone else. In that state, two people have individual sets of data that lead them to their own conclusions, which if bridged in spite of being in opposition, either through evidence-based empirical reasoning, or rhetorical exchange enriches everyone witness to the exchange. You're quite literally bringing everyone around you closer together by building bridges capable of reconciling seemingly divergent worldviews. This is one of the key skills needed everyday as an adult.
Don't look at it like you're doing something shameful, or inviting yourself to get hurt. Living the unexamined life does far more harm than any degree of existential crisis caused on the journey to acquire understanding.
Sorry if it's a bit off topic, but hey, it's a trigger.
More on topic, if the use of trigger warnings is actually causing students who don't have a direct need to avoid something to also avoid certain topics, that is highly problemmatic.
> Please don't remain silent.
> It's okay to disagree.
This may not be the case, anymore, for every subject. There are narratives one may not question; there are things you can say that, while legal, can result in illegal action against you.
Some people are not functioning as the idealized "adult" you describe. They have loud voices.
It may always be okay to disagree in a moral sense, but expressing an opinion out of step with the majority view, when the community climate is full of fear, can have serious, even life-altering consequences. You may well actually be inviting yourself to get hurt by speaking out, and one must pick one's battles. Accomplish change, yes; but also preserve your future effectiveness.
So the goal of them was to make adults scared to learn?
What an incredibly ridiculous waste of time and money school must be these days.
The world's not a very nice place in a lot of ways. Hiding from these things doesn't change that. Learning about and understanding things that may 'trigger' you is a lot more effective and enabling you to deal with these things in life than sticking your head in the sand and hiding from them.
Yeah, the whole point of them isn't to announce it and then force the content on them anyway, the point is to warn about the nature of the content's gravity so that one can make an informed consent whether to continue or not. It's unfortunate that both the researchers and much of the coverage didn't think so.
But surely the counter-argument is that being confronted with difficult material is the whole point of a liberal education? That in choosing to attend university, one has already consented to this? Continually flagging the material under study as somehow dangerous seems designed to suppress critical discussion.
Isn’t the ostensible goal of trigger warnings to make it possible for people to avoid the content? How could reading a trigger warning possible lessen the effect of the content? If you can’t handle Ben Shapiro, how does reading a trigger warning before listening to him “destroy a feminist” help?
I'm against anything that prevents honest discourse or over-protects people from learning experiences.
That said, it's easy to see that if you have had a traumatic incident in your past, you may want to avoid things that make you think about it. Rape is a particularly visceral example - the memories are in the back of your head, and you try to not think about them, but they can be brought up because of conversational topics, news articles, etc.
Ideally one is psychologically strong enough that this is just a moment of pain before moving on; but for some people it's clearly not so minimal. Being empathetic, I can see that it would be nice to enable these people to get through most days without having to re-experience this sort of thing.
I can't see how a trigger warning would accomplish this. Putting "TRIGGER WARNING: RAPE" at the top of an article is just as likely to serve as the trigger itself. Even just putting "TRIGGER WARNING" on its own will eventually do that, through association. If anything, one is more likely to have the memories brought up more often when this kind of headline / disclaimer abounds.
What i meant was that even if you like the concept oftrigger warning, surely you wouldn’t think that they will make reading the content less painful? I always assumed that the idea is that people should be able to avoid reading it altogether, I can’t see how it could possibly help reading the works “Trigger warning: rape” before reading about a rape, it would still remind you of the traumatic experience.
Yeah, that's basically my point. The only way it could possibly work is if you had some client-side thing to filter out anything with the warning so you didn't see it at all.
Thorough study of many fields is going to involve contact with uncomfortable material. Without that contact and exposure it's impossible to fully become immersed and study in depth. That is to say if you have PTSD and you study humanities you must go in to that program knowing you will be exposed to material that makes you uncomfortable. Individual content need not be labeled as potentially triggering.
I'll also add that people can get PTSD from any bad experience. It's pointless to add trigger warnings because you'd have to add them to everything. Hit by a car? Now you need trigger warnings on anything about car accidents. Parent died from diabetes? Willy Wonka now needs a trigger warning. Victim of a robbery...
We've already had prototypical trigger warnings in that shows with flashing lights carry epilepsy warnings. We accept that certain things can trigger nasty responses in people, therefore it's better to add a brief disclaimer so that people with said issues can avoid it.
That said, in any sort of discussion people usually preface links to videos with violent and disturbing content with some sort of warning. If I for example, decided to drop a video of something gruesome without context I would rightfully be lambasted for doing so.
Also, your attempt at downplaying the seriousness of PTSD is really not needed. You're essentially saying that anything can cause PTSD, therefore PTSD is worthless to worry about.
> One teacher I know was recently asked by a student not to use the word “violate” in class—as in “Does this conduct violate the law?”—because the word was triggering. Some students have even suggested that rape law should not be taught because of its potential to cause distress.
> AQA’s decision to ban references of suicide from textbooks has been met with criticism from the sociology community. Anaïs Duong-Pedica argues it is naïve to assume that young people will never have encountered the idea of suicide prior to their A-levels. Refusing to engage with suicide in the classroom also marginalises students’ own experiences of suicide. Rather, measures should be put in place with and for students to accommodate the teaching and learning of sensitive topics such as suicide.
---
> If I for example, decided to drop a video of something gruesome without context I would rightfully be lambasted for doing so.
I completely agree with this use of trigger warnings, if they're given in enough time for students to actually do anything with it.
But even then, a better option would be for the person to get treatment for their PTSD, and not engage in anxiety driven safety behaviours which usually make the problem worse not better, even if they feel comforting in the short term.
The fact that some people exaggerate issues that are sub-clinical into a self-diagnosis doesn't really come into play. The point is determining if trigger warnings are effective and useful for people that do in fact have a clinical issue.
And there's really no need to politicize this. It adds nothing to the conversation and only served to alienate people who might otherwise consider what you say seriously.
Oh but that’s my point, that it’s almost entirely a political issue, not a psychological one. Trigger warnings are used to strengthen victimhood culture, not to shield people from suffering.
As to their effectiveness, unless everything has trigger warnings it’s not going to do much difference, people will still be exposed to the things that traumatise them. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, you need to get used to living in the world sooner or later.
If you're saying trigger warnings are mostly political (I think ideological is a better label but whichever) that is a different topic. The issue in debate here is wether or not, regardless of any social or political baggage, they have some actual utility. In the case of PTSD or depression w/ suicidal ideation, I think they do. Suicide is, in fact "contagious" in it's way. Letting someone make an informed decision about such content can literally save their life. Similarly, PTSD isn't something really helped by repeated exposure to a "trigger". What you propose in terms exposure to get used to the world is the psychological method known as flooding. It does help with phobias, but generally is not effective treatment for PTSD. Part of the treatment path includes minimizing exposure to known stressors while other treaments have time to take effect.
In short, your ideas here appear to be shaped by your politics, and they simply doesn't match up to mental health best practices for effective treatment.
Most of the "Trigger" warnings I've seen, seem to be there for the benefit of the writer so that they may signal their proper and approved virtue status to potential readers.
Sometimes I see trigger warnings made tongue-in-cheek, as a kind of joke.
Also, it's gone beyond it's originally intended purposed and begun to be used with any sort of "extreme" content, e.g., horror/gore/jump scare videos etc, where it serves as an inducement to watching, not a warning against it.
But aside from these, in the original intended context, I don't really see the behavior you mention. Maybe it's the case that a small minority are the caricatured smug virtue signaler you portray, but if so you are painting their entire use with the brush of an extreme minority of an example.
Visit a depression support group forum. You'll see just about any post with suicide content with a trigger warning. Why? Because while it's a common issue among the depressed, suicide is also contagious in a way. People already at some risk are much more likely to attempt or succeed when exposed to content of that nature. It's not uncommon for there to be a slight uptick in suicides after a public figure commits suicide. The second of two suicides within a week from survivors of the Parkland shooting may very well have been influenced in this way, as might the third suicide of parent of a Sandy Hook victim that committed suicide a few days after that.
Why to their long term detriment? If someone is in an online depression support group, for example, and has issues with suicide, how is it detrimental to warn them about a post that contains talk of such things? There is plenty of research about the "contagious" nature of suicide for at-risk populations being exposed to stories and details about it. Allowing someone to make an informed choice about such content can literally save their life.
i avoid drinking poison, is that to my long term detriment?
it doesn't really matter what your personal opinion is on trigger warnings or PTSD is, if someone wishes to avoid a subject it is common courtesy to not bring it up.
people who have triggers are normally aware of their triggers and are hopefully going to therapy to learn coping techniques to deal with them.
The immune system is the best analog. Lack of exposure to the things with the potential to harm you makes you far more susceptible to legitimate harm. But a compromised system is a compromised system, and should be treated as such; the healthy dose of exposure is not the same for everyone.
I would say that the problem with the current milieu is a matter of magnitude, or lack thereof, as it puts very little value in the utility of any exposure whatsoever, and far under-qualifies the necessary criteria for a compromised system.
This caveat is large enough to drive a truck through. Trigger warnings aren't for people who prefer to avoid unpleasant experiences, they're meant for people who have involuntary and debilitating reactions to some kinds of stimulus.