13 ms·

A meta-analysis of the effects of trigger warnings and content notes

81 points by snomad 4y ago

sbf501 4y ago
"Overall, we found that warnings have no effect on affective responses to negative material nor on educational outcomes (i.e., comprehension). However, warnings reliably increase anticipatory affect. Findings on avoidance were mixed, suggesting either that warnings have no effect on engagement with material, or that they increase engagement with negative material under specific circumstances. Limitations and implications for policy and therapeutic practice are discussed." The characteristics of the meta analysis were largely focused on the general public and attempts to limit anxiety in that domain. But I think they forgot an entire other application: NSFL warnings. Whenever I see NSFL I ABSOLUTELY avoid clicking, I even stop reading, and that has greatly improved my peace of mind. Learned that the hard way during the early internet: I've accidentally seen way too many horrific things I wont even tangentially mention to last me 1000 liftimes. Sure there is an anticipatory impact, but NSFL works for me! It seems like one message here is that more moderation is needed if anticipation has similar impact as the actual content.
- XorNot 4y ago
  There's a very practical use of trigger warnings that's existed uncontroversially for decades and it's the use of story tags for internet erotica, dating back to the usenet days. Story tags there serve two important purposes: so you can find what you want to read, and not read that which you definitely do not.
- drewpc 4y ago
  Does NSFL mean "Not Safe For Life"? I wasn't familiar with this term before and have never seen content labeled with it.
  - andy81 4y ago
    Exactly. It differentiates e.g. gore from pornography.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Pxtl 4y ago
    I usually hear it as "not safe for lunch", as in something so horrifying it will make it difficult to keep food down.
    - phkahler 4y ago
      >> I usually hear it as "not safe for lunch", Decades ago, I was having lunch at my parents house. There was a newspaper on the table, unopened, just brought in. I looked over the top of page 1. Unfolded it, and there was a picture of a dead body in the street. It was a story about some conflict in another country (Bosnia perhaps). I'm OK with seeing that if I'm already reading about it and in the right frame of mind, but "not safe for lunch" really hit me that day. So much that I called the newspaper to complain about "being surprised with a dead body on the front pafe during lunch". I've never done that before or since. ;-)
    - DontchaKnowit 4y ago
      It is definitely "not suited for life" (or not safe for life) As in, something nsfw is not okay for work, something nsfl is not okay fir life in general.
  - tomjen3 4y ago
    Yes. The trouble with NSFW is that it covers things you want to seek out, e.g porn, but also things you might want to avoid, e.g war pictures.
- civilized 4y ago
  I imagine the things people consider NSFL depend on their personality and background. These studies seem like they'd be more illuminating if they looked at e.g. rape content warnings for rape survivors. Effects on the rest of us matter as well, but shouldn't be considered the whole story.
  - everforward 4y ago
    I typically see content flagged NSFL when it's generally repulsive regardless of background (excepting those seeking out the content). Stuff like graphic videos of beheadings or people set on fire that's upsetting even to people with no traumatic background. It's kind of like a trigger warning for an average person; background doesn't matter if the content is bad enough.
    - dmix 4y ago
      NSFW/NSFL is a completely different animal than trigger warnings. Only 3 categories exist: 1) no warning, 2) NSFW, 3) NSFL. Trigger warnings are hyper-specific to the audience and could involved thousands (or infinite) potential 'triggers' and a huge variety of audience categories/groups. The burden on the platforms, writers, and general audience is magnitudes higher for some questionable value.
    - avar 4y ago
      Typically, but it's also watered down to the point of being synonymous with "icky" in some contexts. E.g. you'll see posts of the inside of wasp nests and the like being marked NSFL on Reddit. NSFW has also evolved to mean "disable preview", among other things. E.g. it's used to hide the punchline of visual jokes on Reddit.
  - wpietri 4y ago
    Exactly. If I'm going to warn people about content, it's because of what those specific people might struggle with. It was something I understood better once I found a piece of pretty ordinary media traumatic. And here I should say: content warning for cancer and death. Some years back my mom was getting treated for a brain tumor. It was a glioblastoma, and as one of her surgeons explained, "This is the thing you will die from." Median survival time, 14 months. I was very involved in her care and it was draining. She was still fighting hard at that point, but we knew that a moment would come when we'd have to decide to stop treatment. So when I saw that a local theater was having a triple feature with one of my favorite directors, Edgar Wright, I immediately bought tickets. At last, a light and fun evening. What I had forgotten in the years since I had seen it was that in Shaun of the Dead, a zombie rom-com I adored, there is a scene where the protagonist's mom gets bitten. That protagonist, played by Simon Pegg, struggles with what to do. When his mom turns into a zombie, he is forced to shoot her. At that point I was about a month away from having to pull the plug on my own mom, and the scene was just devastating. I had to leave the theater. A decade later I've still not been able to watch the film. I should be clear here: I'm not saying Shaun of the Dead should have had a content warning. I had seen it! And I think that sort of need is better served by things like https://www.doesthedogdie.com/ https://www.doesthedogdie.com/ . But I am saying that it was a profoundly shitty experience. In the same way I'm going to avoid literally stepping on somebody's toes (because that hurts!) I'm going to avoid retraumatizing somebody when I can. I think people already do that pretty naturally with things that are widely seen as disturbing. E.g., I was visiting a friend and went to pick up a textbook on his coffee table. He warned me not to open it, as it belonged to his brother in law who was studying to be a hand surgeon. I was grateful for that warning, as I can't unsee that stuff. To me content warnings are just extending that courtesy to less common horrors.
- roughly 4y ago
  From the discussion, this stuck out: > One possibility is that most people are not skilled at emotional preparation (e.g., reappraising emotional content or using coping strategies). Thus, the uncomfortable anticipatory period is unlikely to reflect any form of helpful action. This conclusion is supported by Bridgland et al. (2021) who asked participants to explain what they would do when they came across a trigger warning; only a minority of participants mentioned some form of approach coping strategy (e.g., reappraisal strategies, such as reminding themselves to focus on non-emotional aspects of the situation; Shiota & Levenson, 2009). Indeed, trigger warnings (including those used in the present studies) typically warn people about the distressing reactions they may have, but do not explain how to reduce these reactions. Basically, content warnings aren’t useful on their own without additional therapeutic training, which makes sense. “Something bad is about to happen” isn’t useful if you don’t have the means or experience to prepare for it.
  - lazide 4y ago
    Eh, NSFL type warnings (and experience) might provide an alternative explanation? The warnings don’t help when people’s curiosity (morbid, compulsive, or otherwise) has not been counteracted by learned experience (or tools via therapy) that they don’t like it or it doesn’t help them. The warnings are generally not generic (aka ‘bad stuff here’), they’re usually quite descriptive of what category it covers. Far more than a NSFL warning for sure! If someone keeps going, it’s not because they did so accidentally. They either thought it was going to be fine and they could handle it (and most can), or couldn’t stop themselves even if they knew it was going to be bad.
    - slothtrop 4y ago
      Makes me wonder what the overlap is between those demanding trigger warnings and those habitually stumbling upon NSFL material. I'd venture very little. Notwithstanding, I have avoided virtually all NSFL stuff and don't understand trigger warnings. However, I think content should be described when rating media.. for instance, R/M ratings could have "rape" in its description when depicted which would make trigger warnings redundant. When it comes to mere conversation (on yt or whatever), it's already redundant.
- concinds 4y ago
  There's a big difference between NSFW/NSFL warnings, and trigger warnings. The former are meant for people that either actively avoid watching gore/porn, or who generally wouldn't mind but are in public/at work and want to avoid embarassment. The latter (trigger warnings) were invented by relatively sheltered and emotionally unhealthy teens on Tumblr, many of whom incorrectly self-diagnose with PTSD and other ailments. It became more prevalent in the 2010s as these teens grew up and got jobs and media influence. It was far more of a way to signal in-group membership, than an actual scientific practice. People who didn't include trigger warnings could get criticized (and occasionally harassed) pretty hard. It's the same as the TikTokers who say "k-word" instead of "kill", not to protect people's feelings, but to avoid TikTok's heavy content moderation. If influencers or corporations start saying "k-word" outside of TikTok in the future, you can assume it has more to do with immaturity (or the horribly-named "virtue signalling" concept, which is really just in-group signalling) than with any empirical attempt to reduce mental health impacts.
snapplebobapple 4y ago
So the reasons people are for this stuff are pretty uniformly incorrect and the reasons people are against this stuff are either also incorrect or possibly correct depending on the situation?
- asingh11 4y ago
  That's a fair point, but psychology is so malleable and that even if people believe that it helps them prepare/digest sensitive info, it will directly help them digest it ... placebo effect is real.
  - snapplebobapple 4y ago
    Would they not have seen that in this study if that was the case? It's not like this set of data noone was primed to expect these warnings to help and now they are being primed. Or are you trying to say the effect of trigger warnings is actually negative but because people were primed to get something positive out of them we end up with no effect instead of statistically significant negative effects?
twic 4y ago
Twitter thread about the work by the author: https://twitter.com/paytonjjones/status/1563950340944560128 https://twitter.com/paytonjjones/status/1563950340944560128
zug_zug 4y ago
What the heck is this? The presumption of this article is that trigger warnings get you emotionally ready for an adverse subject, but I'm pretty sure that's not what they are for. I figure most people often want warnings on their books/videos/etc "e.g. this is a live-leak of somebody dying" so they can avoid the material. --- Per his twitter "Well, too bad for all y'all. Trigger warnings do not seem to encourage avoidance." ... Sounds kinda us-vs-them. I'm 100% sure I do not click on videos on reddit that indicate they are videos of somebody dying. No amount of statistical papers will change that. I highly doubt I'm the only one.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  We've had that for decades as PEGI ratings or film classifications. I was under the impression that trigger warnings were something different.
  - kayodelycaon 4y ago
    Personally, the authors I've worked with use Content Warning as the term. For example, the opening of Law and Order SVU pretty clearly spells out you're in for some deeply disturbing shit. Trigger warnings are content warnings, just spelling out what the content is: i.e. suicide, cutting, rape, etc. To use one of my stories that's on a podcast: > This is an adult story for mature listeners, if that's not your cup of tea or there are children listening, you can skip this story and come back next week. Content warning: this story contains mentions of past self-harm and past traumas. Maybe that's a little specific, but it gives you an idea of how graphic the content is. Regardless, I personally know some of the people listening who will want to skip my story.
  - rsynnott 4y ago
    > I was under the impression that trigger warnings were something different So, the basic intent, on the face of it, is a little different (a "trigger warning", properly, warns of something which may trigger PTSD, a content warning merely warns of something without any particular view on _why_ someone might want to avoid it), but in practice they're functionally similar.
all2well 4y ago
What about stuff like movie and game ratings? What about things like restricting sexually explicit material to minors? Seems like a weird point to make. What I like about content warnings is that I can choose whether I want to engage with something that might upset me in a more granular fashion than “entire profile.” It’s not like I’d stop avoiding content if there were no CWs anywhere.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  This is a fascinating concept to me. How granular should we get? Say.. in original Star Wars, should we add "Contains scenes of hand mutilation" or "Character may discover he is not, in fact, a child of a loving parental unit"? I get what you are getting at, but I am curious how much of that profile should be fleshed out in your view?
  - kuramitropolis 4y ago
    Each piece of content's full semantic structure (think https://xkcd.com/657/ https://xkcd.com/657/ but 10x-1000x more elaborate) should be published in a machine-readable format; then in your personal content blocker you can define as elaborate a filter as needed.
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
      I actually admit I kinda like the idea ( and having just discovered IMDb' tags, it may not be as a herculean a task as I initially thought ) and I almost wonder if Youtube does not have everything of note categorized already. It suddenly does not seem as impossible as it did a moment ago and it would actually benefit people, who are concerned about triggers ( and alleviate concerns of people like me, who don't want flags on everything ).
  - danrocks 4y ago
    I challenge the premise that Darth Vader didn't love his son.
all2well 4y ago
“To many conservatives, trigger warnings are a symptom of a world gone mad: a fragilizing ritual meant to insulate the delicate worldview of a weak-minded generation.” Conservatives routinely get upset about the presence of gay people in media, among many other things. Is that somehow in a different category? (This is in reply to the article linked by the author of the study in that Twitter thread)
- kadoban 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - josephg 4y ago
    Most people only extend empathy to their in-group. The left just has a different in-group. Your comment weirdly supports this reading. To me it reads as an attack on conservatives. Ending your comment with “…worth empathy to them.” implies conservatives are the out-group to you. Sounds to me like you don’t think this out-group (conservatives) deserve your empathy either! I might be misreading your intent, but as it stands it’s pretty ironic!
    - kadoban 4y ago
      I have empathy for most people, I am still able to criticize people though. Having empathy for someone does not mean their actions are immune from all comment.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - komali2 4y ago
      > Most people only extend empathy to their in-group. The left just has a different in-group. Depends on how you define in-group I guess? Most of my leftist friends are straight and white, yet all of them support LGBT rights as human rights, went to Black Lives Matter protests, etc. Yet similar straight, white conservative former friends of mine do not extend empathy to the black american experience, or will outright say homophobic things. Considering a tenant of leftism is tolerance regardless of identity I basically have to hard disagree with a blanket "the left just has a different in-group." A core tenant of leftist ideology is universal empathy, as a basis for support for universal human rights, equity, etc. I don't count authoritarians masquerading as leftists, such as tankies ("Marxist Leninists" my foot) or the hilarious new "MAGA Communists" in this.
romwell 4y ago
This study seems to be pretty limited regardless of how it's carried out. People seem to be hung up on the new term "trigger warning" when we've had content warnings since time immemorial. Nobody seems to be writing the articles on "efficacy" of movie ratings, or putting "18+" labels on content. We, as a society, understand that not all content is suitable for all audiences... when it comes to sex, and sex only, it seems. Then there's the issue of trust. Any source that gives a heads-up of what's coming and doesn't spring 2girls1cup on you without a warning is going to be more trusted than the one that does. Why is that even a question when the same principles applies to content other than an unclothed female nipple or (gasp) genitals? Is it so hard to make the leap to other subjects, such as vivid depictions of rape and violence? Why isn't it common sense that, regardless of studies of "efficacy", giving a heads-up about shit that some people in the audience might not want to see unprompted is, like, polite, and is universally a good thing? It's frankly exhausting to even have these discussions, again and again. Trigger warnings are about not being an asshole to the people who choose to listen to you. The effect is they might choose to listen to you again, because you're not a dick. End of story. _______ TL;DR: the study focuses on nebulous "effects", whereas they should be looking at bounce rates.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  The study was about content warnings and anxiety triggers.
  - romwell 4y ago
    My comments were about the study, and how it fundamentally fails to achieve the state objective.
- kulahan 4y ago
  He explains this in the thread - it appears as though trigger warnings only serve to increase anxiety until the trigger is experienced, and at no point does it improve or worsen the experience. So he analogizes this by saying "Imagine a doctor prescribed you a pill and you asked if it was going to help". If "Oh no, it won't help, but it might cause some very minor harm." was the response, you'd probably find a new doctor. So why do we do the opposite here? In reality, you're "being an asshole" with the trigger warnings, assuming you continue doing them knowing now that it does not help, and may actively harm.
valryon 4y ago
This comes right after the release of our game Flat Eye [0], which includes a quite new Content Warning system. So far players really likes the fact that the system exists and that they can choose to skip or see the content. It's all about being warned anf having the choice. [0]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1358840 https://store.steampowered.com/app/1358840
maxbond 4y ago
(TW: Suicide) I'd like to share a personal annecdote that I think may be instructive to people who have never found trigger warnings to be useful. Once a friend of mine wanted to show me a visual novel. They skipped the trigger warning at the beginning because they felt it was spoilery. We played through the whole thing in one night; about halfway through the story (given the path I took), we were lead to believe a character committed suicide (and that it may be because you rejected them romantically), and then at the end it's revealed they were literally trolling you. I had fairly recently gotten out of a traumatic relationship with someone suicidal. When I would try to leave the relationship, they would threaten to kill themselves. Sometimes they would beg me to kill them. Needless to say, suicide was a difficult topic for me to engage with in an immersive, RPG-like setting. I felt blindsided & stopped having a good time after I was lead to believe the character took their life. I was uncomfortable but didn't know what to do but keep playing. When I finished the game and the twist was revealed, I didn't feel pathos. I think some of you may relate to the moment you realized the show Lost was never going to resolve the mysteries it was putting forth, that the show runners were throwing things out to grab your attention with no plan to resolve them; like my emotions had been manipulated in a cheap way to engage me. I felt toyed with. I think if I had had the trigger warnings, I would've been able to mentally prepare myself. Or I'd have the opportunity to decide I didn't want to play. I want to make informed choices about the media I consume and how I consume it. Make of that what you will. (This was all many years ago & I'm doing well.)
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  Hmm. I am torn for several different reasons including the topics I would want to address, but I feel I should focus on one thing. << I want to make informed choices about the media I consume and how I consume it. That is a reasonable statement and even expectation on the surface. I might accept it as rationale for graphic movies and so on, but your example is visual novel, where you choose your own adventure - a form of media that is almost guaranteed to put you in unusual and unexpected situations? Unless you play a game built around satire of everyday life ( say.. Stanley Parable ), is it not expected to expect unexpected including some questionable predicaments? But more to my real point, should art imitate life or should it be a 'safified' version of it? I can absolutely relate to seeing something you should not see ( my buddy dared/forced me to watch "Hostel" with him and it was not a pleasant experience and have stumbled onto some real bad stuff on the 90s net - I completely buy it can mess you up if you are not mentally prepared ). In your example, how would you know this could have been the outcome without having gone through it? It seems like catch 22. Trigger warning would give you only a very general idea.
igorbark 4y ago
content warnings were originally and imo ongoingly most importantly an accessibility issue. afaict, all but maybe one of the studies don't delineate between members of the population this accessibility aid is supposed to help and gen pop language politics of whether trauma is a "disability" aside, the existence of a meta-analysis over studies which purport to study whether a disability aid works by using it with people who do not have that disability is saddening some other limitations the i don't see the authors comment on (though i haven't read thoroughly so happy to be corrected): - the effect of different kinds of content warnings isn't discussed (some interesting dimensions are specificity and prominence) - the fact that almost all of the studies use self-reported anxiety scales, and thus it is unclear whether content warnings increase anticipatory anxiety or increase self-reported anticipatory anxiety like with most accessibility aids the interesting questions are not "does it help". they're "who do different forms of the aid help or harm" and "morally, when should we expect or even enforce a particular level of implementation" looking at how other accessibility aids work is helpful for answering some of these questions. to take the classic university classroom example, you could for example look at the way some departments handle students who aren't able to take lecture notes. a student can request note taking accommodation for a particular class, and then a peer volunteer (or as a fallback university employee) will take notes for that student. just like that, we don't need to have a national debate about whether it is helpful or harmful if all university professors are forced to provide note taking services for all of their students. anyway, i guess i'm upset because i'm tired of the ongoing massive debate and apparently research industry that completely misses the point.
Spivak 4y ago
They seemingly didn’t study the thing that people actually want the answer to. Given a person who is triggered by a specific type of content do they avoid things labeled with that specific type of content more than if it was unlabeled? It’s one of those things that seems so obviously true when you talk to people. To me this study is actually huge to support trigger warnings and content labels. They don’t cause people across a population overall to avoid the content, they act as a positive signal for people who are looking for it (like R rating on horror movies), and they have no effect on the experience — it makes the response no worse and doesn’t spoil it for people who want it.
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  I definitely use content warnings to avoid stuff. If I see suicide, "that's a nope from me dawg". I feel like I'm not asking for much here. :(
  - catiopatio 4y ago
    Lots of overly fragile people have hang-ups, and lots more will claim them — or wallow in them — if there’s an advantage to do so, and even if that advantage is merely a boost to their ego: you’re special, you’re unique, your problems and inability to control them are not a failing, but a genuine disability society should accommodate. We can’t possibly account for every possible form of extreme emotional fragility, nor is it our responsibility to account for it. The attempt to shift that responsibility to speakers is itself just a form of social aggression, status-seeking and control. So yes, it is asking for too much.
    - Spivak 4y ago
      Good lord, who shit in your Cheerios? This is not the kind of thing someone weighing societal costs says, this is resentment and it runs deep. You do not have to stoic. Feeling emotions is good for your mental health and is not a sign of weakness. You are allowed to want attention. You are even allowed to ask for it. It is a normal part of being a social creature. You deserve to be loved, cared for, and have your needs attended to. When you are deprived of the attention you need it is normal to feel resentment towards people who get it and come up with reasons they must be undeserving. It’s a defense mechanism. Because if they are getting attention because they deserve it then your brain tells you that because you’re not getting attention it must mean you’re not deserving. Pushing past this is a sign of emotional maturity. Different responses pto emotion get different reactions from people. If your response is something visible but non-threatening like tears, curling up, shaking people will be sympathetic and help you. This is healthy. This is good. It’s not an act it’s a release and a signal to others of your needs. You are allowed to ask for help. You are allowed to be vulnerable, and being vulnerable around people can establish trust and mutual respect. Someone who you see as gaining status probably did so because they opened up, shared their feelings, and asked for what they needed. That kind thing makes you more human and naturally makes people like you. You are allowed to set boundaries for yourself. Saying you can’t do violence when picking a movie to watch is a boundary not control. It’s your responsibility to try to not cause others harm or distress and in turn it is others’ responsibility do the same to you. Nobody is forcing you to add trigger warnings. No one will beat down your door and string you up for not adding them, but then you have to read the room which might be harder. Asking “hey I know suicide is a sensitive topic, is everyone good to talk about it?” is a good way to not accidentally bring up sore topics around people whose lives you don’t know.
TexanFeller 4y ago
I grew up in a religious fundamentalist household that tried to shelter me from every "bad" thing in the world. I wasn't allowed to watch many cartoons because they were "too violent. It's probably for that reason that few things fill me with more disgust and rage than trigger warnings and censorship. Thank God for the Internet coming along to enable me to see every form of violence, abuse, pornography, torture, death, suicide advocacy, and bomb making material in the world. I am eternally grateful to be the worldly person I am to day and horrified to see trigger warnings appearing in most of the executive communications at my workplace. I used to have crippling anxiety, PTSD, thought of suicide every day, and struggled with a large assortment of chronic mental health conditions that disable many people, so in theory I'm someone that should want this. Deliberately exposing myself to as much of the worst of the world as possible made me much happier and stronger.
Mezzie 4y ago
I struggle with trigger/content warnings as someone with PTSD stemming from severe childhood neglect/abuse (e.g. I was allowed to just rot in the basement for a week with a fever of 104+ as a child). The reason is because there seems to be a standardized list of 'real' triggers that people agree on, and I'm often triggered by depictions of loving families. Which nobody is ever going to warn for. I also have major disassociation and emotional blunting, so I have no idea what makes violence or sexual related cross the line into needing a warning. So ironically, spaces that insist heavily on trigger warnings are hard for me to exist in as a person with PTSD without breaking the norms. It's hard not to feel there are 'right' and 'wrong' triggers.
- maxbond 4y ago
  Maybe a more generic tagging/metadata system would help people with more idiosyncratic/unanticipated trauma. Something I find promising in this is that it has the hallmark of many great accessibility solutions, it's useful for everyone even if it's more important to a specific group of people (eg, screen readers and sign language are just great tools, but are much more profound for people with sensory disabilities). It still wouldn't be perfect of course, things could be mislabeled, or the label you would want could still be missing, or like you mention you yourself might not entirely understand what you're looking for.
  - Mezzie 4y ago
    It's possible, but I doubt that would come to pass for two logistical reasons (putting on my librarian hat): 1.) Nobody would want to pay for a central organization/group to make the ontology or labeling system. That would be a complex undertaking that would require a substantial amount of domain knowledge, not something that could be thrown together by volunteers. 2.) Keeping it up to date would require disclosure from people with PTSD to said central group and for various reasons a lot of us wouldn't be comfortable with that.
    - maxbond 4y ago
      What would you think about a casual/emergent ontology, like the way fan fiction is tagged, or like Wikidata? I realize these are very different approaches, but people are already putting in huge effort to categorize content just out of their own passion, and I'm curious what you would think of a user-generated approach.
ogurechny 4y ago
So it is mostly a shared superstition. “Grugg see four rocks like a paw, Grugg must say doo-doo for good tiger hunt”, except we shouldn't consider ourselves to be much different from Grugg. Of course, it's not the only example of modern day religious practices (cough… cough… masks)…

81 points by snomad 4y ago

"Overall, we found that warnings have no effect on affective responses to negative material nor on educational outcomes (i.e., comprehension). However, warnings reliably increase anticipatory affect. Findings on avoidance were mixed, suggesting either that warnings have no effect on engagement with material, or that they increase engagement with negative material under specific circumstances. Limitations and implications for policy and therapeutic practice are discussed." The characteristics of the meta analysis were largely focused on the general public and attempts to limit anxiety in that domain. But I think they forgot an entire other application: NSFL warnings. Whenever I see NSFL I ABSOLUTELY avoid clicking, I even stop reading, and that has greatly improved my peace of mind. Learned that the hard way during the early internet: I've accidentally seen way too many horrific things I wont even tangentially mention to last me 1000 liftimes. Sure there is an anticipatory impact, but NSFL works for me! It seems like one message here is that more moderation is needed if anticipation has similar impact as the actual content.

XorNot 4y ago
There's a very practical use of trigger warnings that's existed uncontroversially for decades and it's the use of story tags for internet erotica, dating back to the usenet days. Story tags there serve two important purposes: so you can find what you want to read, and not read that which you definitely do not.
drewpc 4y ago
Does NSFL mean "Not Safe For Life"? I wasn't familiar with this term before and have never seen content labeled with it.
- andy81 4y ago
  Exactly. It differentiates e.g. gore from pornography.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Pxtl 4y ago
  I usually hear it as "not safe for lunch", as in something so horrifying it will make it difficult to keep food down.
  - phkahler 4y ago
    >> I usually hear it as "not safe for lunch", Decades ago, I was having lunch at my parents house. There was a newspaper on the table, unopened, just brought in. I looked over the top of page 1. Unfolded it, and there was a picture of a dead body in the street. It was a story about some conflict in another country (Bosnia perhaps). I'm OK with seeing that if I'm already reading about it and in the right frame of mind, but "not safe for lunch" really hit me that day. So much that I called the newspaper to complain about "being surprised with a dead body on the front pafe during lunch". I've never done that before or since. ;-)
  - DontchaKnowit 4y ago
    It is definitely "not suited for life" (or not safe for life) As in, something nsfw is not okay for work, something nsfl is not okay fir life in general.
- tomjen3 4y ago
  Yes. The trouble with NSFW is that it covers things you want to seek out, e.g porn, but also things you might want to avoid, e.g war pictures.
civilized 4y ago
I imagine the things people consider NSFL depend on their personality and background. These studies seem like they'd be more illuminating if they looked at e.g. rape content warnings for rape survivors. Effects on the rest of us matter as well, but shouldn't be considered the whole story.
- everforward 4y ago
  I typically see content flagged NSFL when it's generally repulsive regardless of background (excepting those seeking out the content). Stuff like graphic videos of beheadings or people set on fire that's upsetting even to people with no traumatic background. It's kind of like a trigger warning for an average person; background doesn't matter if the content is bad enough.
  - dmix 4y ago
    NSFW/NSFL is a completely different animal than trigger warnings. Only 3 categories exist: 1) no warning, 2) NSFW, 3) NSFL. Trigger warnings are hyper-specific to the audience and could involved thousands (or infinite) potential 'triggers' and a huge variety of audience categories/groups. The burden on the platforms, writers, and general audience is magnitudes higher for some questionable value.
  - avar 4y ago
    Typically, but it's also watered down to the point of being synonymous with "icky" in some contexts. E.g. you'll see posts of the inside of wasp nests and the like being marked NSFL on Reddit. NSFW has also evolved to mean "disable preview", among other things. E.g. it's used to hide the punchline of visual jokes on Reddit.
- wpietri 4y ago
  Exactly. If I'm going to warn people about content, it's because of what those specific people might struggle with. It was something I understood better once I found a piece of pretty ordinary media traumatic. And here I should say: content warning for cancer and death. Some years back my mom was getting treated for a brain tumor. It was a glioblastoma, and as one of her surgeons explained, "This is the thing you will die from." Median survival time, 14 months. I was very involved in her care and it was draining. She was still fighting hard at that point, but we knew that a moment would come when we'd have to decide to stop treatment. So when I saw that a local theater was having a triple feature with one of my favorite directors, Edgar Wright, I immediately bought tickets. At last, a light and fun evening. What I had forgotten in the years since I had seen it was that in Shaun of the Dead, a zombie rom-com I adored, there is a scene where the protagonist's mom gets bitten. That protagonist, played by Simon Pegg, struggles with what to do. When his mom turns into a zombie, he is forced to shoot her. At that point I was about a month away from having to pull the plug on my own mom, and the scene was just devastating. I had to leave the theater. A decade later I've still not been able to watch the film. I should be clear here: I'm not saying Shaun of the Dead should have had a content warning. I had seen it! And I think that sort of need is better served by things like https://www.doesthedogdie.com/ https://www.doesthedogdie.com/ . But I am saying that it was a profoundly shitty experience. In the same way I'm going to avoid literally stepping on somebody's toes (because that hurts!) I'm going to avoid retraumatizing somebody when I can. I think people already do that pretty naturally with things that are widely seen as disturbing. E.g., I was visiting a friend and went to pick up a textbook on his coffee table. He warned me not to open it, as it belonged to his brother in law who was studying to be a hand surgeon. I was grateful for that warning, as I can't unsee that stuff. To me content warnings are just extending that courtesy to less common horrors.
roughly 4y ago
From the discussion, this stuck out: > One possibility is that most people are not skilled at emotional preparation (e.g., reappraising emotional content or using coping strategies). Thus, the uncomfortable anticipatory period is unlikely to reflect any form of helpful action. This conclusion is supported by Bridgland et al. (2021) who asked participants to explain what they would do when they came across a trigger warning; only a minority of participants mentioned some form of approach coping strategy (e.g., reappraisal strategies, such as reminding themselves to focus on non-emotional aspects of the situation; Shiota & Levenson, 2009). Indeed, trigger warnings (including those used in the present studies) typically warn people about the distressing reactions they may have, but do not explain how to reduce these reactions. Basically, content warnings aren’t useful on their own without additional therapeutic training, which makes sense. “Something bad is about to happen” isn’t useful if you don’t have the means or experience to prepare for it.
- lazide 4y ago
  Eh, NSFL type warnings (and experience) might provide an alternative explanation? The warnings don’t help when people’s curiosity (morbid, compulsive, or otherwise) has not been counteracted by learned experience (or tools via therapy) that they don’t like it or it doesn’t help them. The warnings are generally not generic (aka ‘bad stuff here’), they’re usually quite descriptive of what category it covers. Far more than a NSFL warning for sure! If someone keeps going, it’s not because they did so accidentally. They either thought it was going to be fine and they could handle it (and most can), or couldn’t stop themselves even if they knew it was going to be bad.
  - slothtrop 4y ago
    Makes me wonder what the overlap is between those demanding trigger warnings and those habitually stumbling upon NSFL material. I'd venture very little. Notwithstanding, I have avoided virtually all NSFL stuff and don't understand trigger warnings. However, I think content should be described when rating media.. for instance, R/M ratings could have "rape" in its description when depicted which would make trigger warnings redundant. When it comes to mere conversation (on yt or whatever), it's already redundant.
concinds 4y ago
There's a big difference between NSFW/NSFL warnings, and trigger warnings. The former are meant for people that either actively avoid watching gore/porn, or who generally wouldn't mind but are in public/at work and want to avoid embarassment. The latter (trigger warnings) were invented by relatively sheltered and emotionally unhealthy teens on Tumblr, many of whom incorrectly self-diagnose with PTSD and other ailments. It became more prevalent in the 2010s as these teens grew up and got jobs and media influence. It was far more of a way to signal in-group membership, than an actual scientific practice. People who didn't include trigger warnings could get criticized (and occasionally harassed) pretty hard. It's the same as the TikTokers who say "k-word" instead of "kill", not to protect people's feelings, but to avoid TikTok's heavy content moderation. If influencers or corporations start saying "k-word" outside of TikTok in the future, you can assume it has more to do with immaturity (or the horribly-named "virtue signalling" concept, which is really just in-group signalling) than with any empirical attempt to reduce mental health impacts.

snapplebobapple 4y ago

So the reasons people are for this stuff are pretty uniformly incorrect and the reasons people are against this stuff are either also incorrect or possibly correct depending on the situation?

asingh11 4y ago
That's a fair point, but psychology is so malleable and that even if people believe that it helps them prepare/digest sensitive info, it will directly help them digest it ... placebo effect is real.
- snapplebobapple 4y ago
  Would they not have seen that in this study if that was the case? It's not like this set of data noone was primed to expect these warnings to help and now they are being primed. Or are you trying to say the effect of trigger warnings is actually negative but because people were primed to get something positive out of them we end up with no effect instead of statistically significant negative effects?

twic 4y ago

Twitter thread about the work by the author: https://twitter.com/paytonjjones/status/1563950340944560128 https://twitter.com/paytonjjones/status/1563950340944560128

zug_zug 4y ago

What the heck is this? The presumption of this article is that trigger warnings get you emotionally ready for an adverse subject, but I'm pretty sure that's not what they are for. I figure most people often want warnings on their books/videos/etc "e.g. this is a live-leak of somebody dying" so they can avoid the material. --- Per his twitter "Well, too bad for all y'all. Trigger warnings do not seem to encourage avoidance." ... Sounds kinda us-vs-them. I'm 100% sure I do not click on videos on reddit that indicate they are videos of somebody dying. No amount of statistical papers will change that. I highly doubt I'm the only one.

deleted 4y ago
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robertlagrant 4y ago
We've had that for decades as PEGI ratings or film classifications. I was under the impression that trigger warnings were something different.
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  Personally, the authors I've worked with use Content Warning as the term. For example, the opening of Law and Order SVU pretty clearly spells out you're in for some deeply disturbing shit. Trigger warnings are content warnings, just spelling out what the content is: i.e. suicide, cutting, rape, etc. To use one of my stories that's on a podcast: > This is an adult story for mature listeners, if that's not your cup of tea or there are children listening, you can skip this story and come back next week. Content warning: this story contains mentions of past self-harm and past traumas. Maybe that's a little specific, but it gives you an idea of how graphic the content is. Regardless, I personally know some of the people listening who will want to skip my story.
- rsynnott 4y ago
  > I was under the impression that trigger warnings were something different So, the basic intent, on the face of it, is a little different (a "trigger warning", properly, warns of something which may trigger PTSD, a content warning merely warns of something without any particular view on _why_ someone might want to avoid it), but in practice they're functionally similar.

all2well 4y ago

What about stuff like movie and game ratings? What about things like restricting sexually explicit material to minors? Seems like a weird point to make. What I like about content warnings is that I can choose whether I want to engage with something that might upset me in a more granular fashion than “entire profile.” It’s not like I’d stop avoiding content if there were no CWs anywhere.

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
This is a fascinating concept to me. How granular should we get? Say.. in original Star Wars, should we add "Contains scenes of hand mutilation" or "Character may discover he is not, in fact, a child of a loving parental unit"? I get what you are getting at, but I am curious how much of that profile should be fleshed out in your view?
- kuramitropolis 4y ago
  Each piece of content's full semantic structure (think https://xkcd.com/657/ https://xkcd.com/657/ but 10x-1000x more elaborate) should be published in a machine-readable format; then in your personal content blocker you can define as elaborate a filter as needed.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
    I actually admit I kinda like the idea ( and having just discovered IMDb' tags, it may not be as a herculean a task as I initially thought ) and I almost wonder if Youtube does not have everything of note categorized already. It suddenly does not seem as impossible as it did a moment ago and it would actually benefit people, who are concerned about triggers ( and alleviate concerns of people like me, who don't want flags on everything ).
- danrocks 4y ago
  I challenge the premise that Darth Vader didn't love his son.

all2well 4y ago

“To many conservatives, trigger warnings are a symptom of a world gone mad: a fragilizing ritual meant to insulate the delicate worldview of a weak-minded generation.” Conservatives routinely get upset about the presence of gay people in media, among many other things. Is that somehow in a different category? (This is in reply to the article linked by the author of the study in that Twitter thread)

kadoban 4y ago
[flagged]
- josephg 4y ago
  Most people only extend empathy to their in-group. The left just has a different in-group. Your comment weirdly supports this reading. To me it reads as an attack on conservatives. Ending your comment with “…worth empathy to them.” implies conservatives are the out-group to you. Sounds to me like you don’t think this out-group (conservatives) deserve your empathy either! I might be misreading your intent, but as it stands it’s pretty ironic!
  - kadoban 4y ago
    I have empathy for most people, I am still able to criticize people though. Having empathy for someone does not mean their actions are immune from all comment.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - komali2 4y ago
    > Most people only extend empathy to their in-group. The left just has a different in-group. Depends on how you define in-group I guess? Most of my leftist friends are straight and white, yet all of them support LGBT rights as human rights, went to Black Lives Matter protests, etc. Yet similar straight, white conservative former friends of mine do not extend empathy to the black american experience, or will outright say homophobic things. Considering a tenant of leftism is tolerance regardless of identity I basically have to hard disagree with a blanket "the left just has a different in-group." A core tenant of leftist ideology is universal empathy, as a basis for support for universal human rights, equity, etc. I don't count authoritarians masquerading as leftists, such as tankies ("Marxist Leninists" my foot) or the hilarious new "MAGA Communists" in this.

romwell 4y ago

This study seems to be pretty limited regardless of how it's carried out. People seem to be hung up on the new term "trigger warning" when we've had content warnings since time immemorial. Nobody seems to be writing the articles on "efficacy" of movie ratings, or putting "18+" labels on content. We, as a society, understand that not all content is suitable for all audiences... when it comes to sex, and sex only, it seems. Then there's the issue of trust. Any source that gives a heads-up of what's coming and doesn't spring 2girls1cup on you without a warning is going to be more trusted than the one that does. Why is that even a question when the same principles applies to content other than an unclothed female nipple or (gasp) genitals? Is it so hard to make the leap to other subjects, such as vivid depictions of rape and violence? Why isn't it common sense that, regardless of studies of "efficacy", giving a heads-up about shit that some people in the audience might not want to see unprompted is, like, polite, and is universally a good thing? It's frankly exhausting to even have these discussions, again and again. Trigger warnings are about not being an asshole to the people who choose to listen to you. The effect is they might choose to listen to you again, because you're not a dick. End of story. _______ TL;DR: the study focuses on nebulous "effects", whereas they should be looking at bounce rates.

vorpalhex 4y ago
The study was about content warnings and anxiety triggers.
- romwell 4y ago
  My comments were about the study, and how it fundamentally fails to achieve the state objective.
kulahan 4y ago
He explains this in the thread - it appears as though trigger warnings only serve to increase anxiety until the trigger is experienced, and at no point does it improve or worsen the experience. So he analogizes this by saying "Imagine a doctor prescribed you a pill and you asked if it was going to help". If "Oh no, it won't help, but it might cause some very minor harm." was the response, you'd probably find a new doctor. So why do we do the opposite here? In reality, you're "being an asshole" with the trigger warnings, assuming you continue doing them knowing now that it does not help, and may actively harm.

valryon 4y ago

This comes right after the release of our game Flat Eye [0], which includes a quite new Content Warning system. So far players really likes the fact that the system exists and that they can choose to skip or see the content. It's all about being warned anf having the choice. [0]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1358840 https://store.steampowered.com/app/1358840

maxbond 4y ago

(TW: Suicide) I'd like to share a personal annecdote that I think may be instructive to people who have never found trigger warnings to be useful. Once a friend of mine wanted to show me a visual novel. They skipped the trigger warning at the beginning because they felt it was spoilery. We played through the whole thing in one night; about halfway through the story (given the path I took), we were lead to believe a character committed suicide (and that it may be because you rejected them romantically), and then at the end it's revealed they were literally trolling you. I had fairly recently gotten out of a traumatic relationship with someone suicidal. When I would try to leave the relationship, they would threaten to kill themselves. Sometimes they would beg me to kill them. Needless to say, suicide was a difficult topic for me to engage with in an immersive, RPG-like setting. I felt blindsided & stopped having a good time after I was lead to believe the character took their life. I was uncomfortable but didn't know what to do but keep playing. When I finished the game and the twist was revealed, I didn't feel pathos. I think some of you may relate to the moment you realized the show Lost was never going to resolve the mysteries it was putting forth, that the show runners were throwing things out to grab your attention with no plan to resolve them; like my emotions had been manipulated in a cheap way to engage me. I felt toyed with. I think if I had had the trigger warnings, I would've been able to mentally prepare myself. Or I'd have the opportunity to decide I didn't want to play. I want to make informed choices about the media I consume and how I consume it. Make of that what you will. (This was all many years ago & I'm doing well.)

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
Hmm. I am torn for several different reasons including the topics I would want to address, but I feel I should focus on one thing. << I want to make informed choices about the media I consume and how I consume it. That is a reasonable statement and even expectation on the surface. I might accept it as rationale for graphic movies and so on, but your example is visual novel, where you choose your own adventure - a form of media that is almost guaranteed to put you in unusual and unexpected situations? Unless you play a game built around satire of everyday life ( say.. Stanley Parable ), is it not expected to expect unexpected including some questionable predicaments? But more to my real point, should art imitate life or should it be a 'safified' version of it? I can absolutely relate to seeing something you should not see ( my buddy dared/forced me to watch "Hostel" with him and it was not a pleasant experience and have stumbled onto some real bad stuff on the 90s net - I completely buy it can mess you up if you are not mentally prepared ). In your example, how would you know this could have been the outcome without having gone through it? It seems like catch 22. Trigger warning would give you only a very general idea.

igorbark 4y ago

content warnings were originally and imo ongoingly most importantly an accessibility issue. afaict, all but maybe one of the studies don't delineate between members of the population this accessibility aid is supposed to help and gen pop language politics of whether trauma is a "disability" aside, the existence of a meta-analysis over studies which purport to study whether a disability aid works by using it with people who do not have that disability is saddening some other limitations the i don't see the authors comment on (though i haven't read thoroughly so happy to be corrected): - the effect of different kinds of content warnings isn't discussed (some interesting dimensions are specificity and prominence) - the fact that almost all of the studies use self-reported anxiety scales, and thus it is unclear whether content warnings increase anticipatory anxiety or increase self-reported anticipatory anxiety like with most accessibility aids the interesting questions are not "does it help". they're "who do different forms of the aid help or harm" and "morally, when should we expect or even enforce a particular level of implementation" looking at how other accessibility aids work is helpful for answering some of these questions. to take the classic university classroom example, you could for example look at the way some departments handle students who aren't able to take lecture notes. a student can request note taking accommodation for a particular class, and then a peer volunteer (or as a fallback university employee) will take notes for that student. just like that, we don't need to have a national debate about whether it is helpful or harmful if all university professors are forced to provide note taking services for all of their students. anyway, i guess i'm upset because i'm tired of the ongoing massive debate and apparently research industry that completely misses the point.

Spivak 4y ago

They seemingly didn’t study the thing that people actually want the answer to. Given a person who is triggered by a specific type of content do they avoid things labeled with that specific type of content more than if it was unlabeled? It’s one of those things that seems so obviously true when you talk to people. To me this study is actually huge to support trigger warnings and content labels. They don’t cause people across a population overall to avoid the content, they act as a positive signal for people who are looking for it (like R rating on horror movies), and they have no effect on the experience — it makes the response no worse and doesn’t spoil it for people who want it.

kayodelycaon 4y ago
I definitely use content warnings to avoid stuff. If I see suicide, "that's a nope from me dawg". I feel like I'm not asking for much here. :(
- catiopatio 4y ago
  Lots of overly fragile people have hang-ups, and lots more will claim them — or wallow in them — if there’s an advantage to do so, and even if that advantage is merely a boost to their ego: you’re special, you’re unique, your problems and inability to control them are not a failing, but a genuine disability society should accommodate. We can’t possibly account for every possible form of extreme emotional fragility, nor is it our responsibility to account for it. The attempt to shift that responsibility to speakers is itself just a form of social aggression, status-seeking and control. So yes, it is asking for too much.
  - Spivak 4y ago
    Good lord, who shit in your Cheerios? This is not the kind of thing someone weighing societal costs says, this is resentment and it runs deep. You do not have to stoic. Feeling emotions is good for your mental health and is not a sign of weakness. You are allowed to want attention. You are even allowed to ask for it. It is a normal part of being a social creature. You deserve to be loved, cared for, and have your needs attended to. When you are deprived of the attention you need it is normal to feel resentment towards people who get it and come up with reasons they must be undeserving. It’s a defense mechanism. Because if they are getting attention because they deserve it then your brain tells you that because you’re not getting attention it must mean you’re not deserving. Pushing past this is a sign of emotional maturity. Different responses pto emotion get different reactions from people. If your response is something visible but non-threatening like tears, curling up, shaking people will be sympathetic and help you. This is healthy. This is good. It’s not an act it’s a release and a signal to others of your needs. You are allowed to ask for help. You are allowed to be vulnerable, and being vulnerable around people can establish trust and mutual respect. Someone who you see as gaining status probably did so because they opened up, shared their feelings, and asked for what they needed. That kind thing makes you more human and naturally makes people like you. You are allowed to set boundaries for yourself. Saying you can’t do violence when picking a movie to watch is a boundary not control. It’s your responsibility to try to not cause others harm or distress and in turn it is others’ responsibility do the same to you. Nobody is forcing you to add trigger warnings. No one will beat down your door and string you up for not adding them, but then you have to read the room which might be harder. Asking “hey I know suicide is a sensitive topic, is everyone good to talk about it?” is a good way to not accidentally bring up sore topics around people whose lives you don’t know.

TexanFeller 4y ago

I grew up in a religious fundamentalist household that tried to shelter me from every "bad" thing in the world. I wasn't allowed to watch many cartoons because they were "too violent. It's probably for that reason that few things fill me with more disgust and rage than trigger warnings and censorship. Thank God for the Internet coming along to enable me to see every form of violence, abuse, pornography, torture, death, suicide advocacy, and bomb making material in the world. I am eternally grateful to be the worldly person I am to day and horrified to see trigger warnings appearing in most of the executive communications at my workplace. I used to have crippling anxiety, PTSD, thought of suicide every day, and struggled with a large assortment of chronic mental health conditions that disable many people, so in theory I'm someone that should want this. Deliberately exposing myself to as much of the worst of the world as possible made me much happier and stronger.

Mezzie 4y ago

I struggle with trigger/content warnings as someone with PTSD stemming from severe childhood neglect/abuse (e.g. I was allowed to just rot in the basement for a week with a fever of 104+ as a child). The reason is because there seems to be a standardized list of 'real' triggers that people agree on, and I'm often triggered by depictions of loving families. Which nobody is ever going to warn for. I also have major disassociation and emotional blunting, so I have no idea what makes violence or sexual related cross the line into needing a warning. So ironically, spaces that insist heavily on trigger warnings are hard for me to exist in as a person with PTSD without breaking the norms. It's hard not to feel there are 'right' and 'wrong' triggers.

maxbond 4y ago
Maybe a more generic tagging/metadata system would help people with more idiosyncratic/unanticipated trauma. Something I find promising in this is that it has the hallmark of many great accessibility solutions, it's useful for everyone even if it's more important to a specific group of people (eg, screen readers and sign language are just great tools, but are much more profound for people with sensory disabilities). It still wouldn't be perfect of course, things could be mislabeled, or the label you would want could still be missing, or like you mention you yourself might not entirely understand what you're looking for.
- Mezzie 4y ago
  It's possible, but I doubt that would come to pass for two logistical reasons (putting on my librarian hat): 1.) Nobody would want to pay for a central organization/group to make the ontology or labeling system. That would be a complex undertaking that would require a substantial amount of domain knowledge, not something that could be thrown together by volunteers. 2.) Keeping it up to date would require disclosure from people with PTSD to said central group and for various reasons a lot of us wouldn't be comfortable with that.
  - maxbond 4y ago
    What would you think about a casual/emergent ontology, like the way fan fiction is tagged, or like Wikidata? I realize these are very different approaches, but people are already putting in huge effort to categorize content just out of their own passion, and I'm curious what you would think of a user-generated approach.

ogurechny 4y ago

So it is mostly a shared superstition. “Grugg see four rocks like a paw, Grugg must say doo-doo for good tiger hunt”, except we shouldn't consider ourselves to be much different from Grugg. Of course, it's not the only example of modern day religious practices (cough… cough… masks)…