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

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

#81

Post by acoustics »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #46
all2well wrote: post #13

“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)

I think the overall concern is that people in general seem all too willing to ignore reality. I can't really speak for any particular group in US ( or even in the old country ), because I am sufficiently weird that I do not really fit anywhere. Yay me. That said, trigger warning is already a trigger word and may need to replaced with something else to avoid emotional reaction ( although I admit I do not have a good r…

> Lately, it seems, it is not conservatives are not the ones calling for boycots, bans, deplatforming and demonetization.

Without getting too far into the weeds of partisan politics, I’m not sure how you got this impression.

Ask your local school board or your local library which political side spends more time trying to get media banned.

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

#82

Post by maxbond »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #79
maxbond wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a TW on the opening screen about suicide. I'd have liked to see it. Obviously that was my friend's error and not the game's, and we discussed this afterwards. What I wanted to highlight is that a trigger warning was erased, and this was a very vulnerable time for me when it would have been very useful. I'm not entirely sure I've understood your objection properly, but I'll try to address your questions. Yea…

First, thank you for your answers. Some disclosure may be necessary. I am a strong free speech proponent, which colors my views of the world somewhat. I will admit that in this case, I had no real objection, but I was more trying to understand how you see the world and to what extent some things are ok ( which you correctly identified anyway ). In other words, I found your post interesting and decided to engage. Beli…

I appreciate your engaging, and doing so respectfully and open mindedly. I never took the impression you were unreasonable or that our dialogue would be unproductive.

I do think you're mistaking a mistake that I see many free speech advocates make, which is to confuse criticism with compelled speech or compelled silence. A critical benefit of free speech is to make an argument that something is bad, including even that something shouldn't be said or done. But when people use their voice to do that, sometimes free speech advocates get confused and think this is limiting someone's rights.

But it's actually the very discourse and truth seeking process that speech is meant to enable at work. I'm not asking for compelled speech or silence, I'm making the case and hoping people will do so voluntarily. And if they don't, then I'll simply repeat my objection, incorporating new evidence and better arguments.

Reading between the lines, I think perhaps you're worried that governments may use this metadata to limit the distribution of media? And that's a reasonable concern, but I'd describe that as two separate problems; the need for metadata, and the tendency of overzealous regulators to react to something once it's been made legible to them, despite it not previously being an issue.

(Just a note, I apologize for the phrasing "I'm puzzled by your objection", I edited it to make it clearer that it was my not understanding and not something wrong with how you expressed yourself. That your quote uses the older version shows you spent quite some time considering this. I appreciate it.)

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

#83

Post by dmix »

wpietri wrote: post #61
lazide wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to hear about your loss and experience. It does sound really terrible. The challenge society wide is, of course, where is the line, and when is it useful to do at all? Which the study seems to be saying, it isn’t generally useful for the ‘less common horrors’, at least not with a somewhat generic warning.

Sure. I think it's something we have to figure out jointly between people of different experiences. But I agree with others that definitionally the effectiveness for less common stuff can't be measured by looking at the general-audience reaction.

If you were a university or journalist or public figure tweeting etc, it's important to consider the generic utility.

Your example is very relevant as it's both very real and also extremely specific to your own world and context.

Trying to predict every potential 'trigger' imposes a major mental burden both on the authors/editors to find them and on the reader in the distracting way it's prominently appended to information

If you're talking to a very specific audience I don't see anything wrong with it. But making it a common/general practice seems like a completely wasteful exercise. Especially with the way the grievance crowd is never satisfied with only a few people getting special treatment, the list always grows exponentially. Then eventually there will be a mountain of trigger warnings for every potential niche.

So if we agree there's some very real (growing) costs involved, the other factor is does it provide real benefit for x% of readers? Then you can evaluate the ROI. If studies show people are even more likely to read it anyway (or maybe can't "prepare" themselves in a meaningful way) it's hard to see much benefits vs costs.

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

#84

Post by romwell »

kulahan wrote: post #31
romwell wrote: post #18

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 s…

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 do…

>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.

Did it occur to the author that perhaps communicating when the triggering content is going to happen in advance, as well as giving a heads-up right before it to allow the people to make a choice to not experience it would be the thing to try in experiments?

Evidently not.

It feels like the author (and HN) thoroughly misunderstands both the concept of trigger warnings and informed consent.

>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?

This analogy is beyond broken.

Ads for medication are required to include possible side effects. That's a closer analogy.

>In reality,

In the reality of broken analogies and hacks pushing flawed analysis and misunderstanding as research, I am a very sad person.

Let's be better than that.

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

#85

Post by dmix »

everforward wrote: post #11
civilized wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

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

#86

Post by [deleted] »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #80
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you want to fit somewhere but haven't yet found a place to fit, or do you not care about fitting anywhere? Seems somewhat personal, but I will respond. Neither. I see myself as an outsider, which allows for a very different set of perspectives. For better or worse, I like the fact that I do not belong everywhere equally. I did not directly say that, but that is a good catch. I will admit that this portion of his…

"Seems somewhat personal, but I will respond. Neither. I see myself as an outsider, which allows for a very different set of perspectives. For better or worse, I like the fact that I do not belong everywhere equally." For what it's worth this is a particularly common worldview for a particular couple of personality/motivational types (of which I, and many other people in places such as HN, happen to be a member of on…

[deleted]

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

#87

Post by romwell »

rsynnott wrote: post #76
kulahan wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 do…

> it appears as though trigger warnings only serve to increase anxiety until the trigger is experienced So, I'd see things like this as more warning people that something contains content they might want to _avoid_. The analysis seems to be more about cases where people read the warning and then _consume the content anyway_, but is that really the common case?

>The analysis seems to be more about cases where people read the warning and then _consume the content anyway_, but is that really the common case?

It's not, which is why the entire analysis is BS.

If the subject of the experiment isn't given the choice to opt out, the experiment is flawed.

Is the subject of the experiment is indifferent to the content being warned about to begin with, it is meaningless.

And if not, it's just abuse.

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

#88

Post by catiopatio »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #47
Spivak wrote: post #38

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…

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. :(

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.

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

#89

Post by catiopatio »

Mezzie wrote: post #55

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 dis…

> I'm often triggered by depictions of loving families.

What does “triggered” actually mean, specifically?

Regardless, that seems like a serious mental health issue.

You are responsible for and in control of your own emotions. If you don’t feel that’s true, you need to spend more time in serious therapy, not demanding “trigger” warnings.

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

#90

Post by Mezzie »

catiopatio wrote: post #89
Mezzie wrote: post #55

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 dis…

> I'm often triggered by depictions of loving families. What does “triggered” actually mean, specifically? Regardless, that seems like a serious mental health issue. You are responsible for and in control of your own emotions. If you don’t feel that’s true, you need to spend more time in serious therapy, not demanding “trigger” warnings.

I generally agree.

I mean 'triggered' in the PTSD sense of the term since I have PTSD. I'm nominally the population served by trigger warnings, but I find the cultural practices around them not helpful because they assume a common experience when PTSD triggers are very personal and in addition trigger warnings are accompanied by a 'walk on eggshells' culture which clashes with the desensitivity/disassociation that also accommodates PTSD.

And I am in therapy, thanks. You should probably take some reading comprehension classes though.

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