Trigger warnings aren't meant to be useful; they are a manner of virtue signalling.
Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material
21–30 of 78 posts
Re: Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material
#22Yeah, that's because they had to watch the content anyway. Trigger warnings allow people to avoid triggering content, or to delay consuming the content until they're in a better frame of mind. If you say "This content has X, Y, and Z, and you have to consume it right now" the fact that you warned them isn't going to do much.
The article does mention... > Consider a meta-analysis of 39 studies in 2007 by Sam Houston State University in Texas that found a ‘clear, consistent association’ between using avoidance-based coping strategies (that is, staying away from upsetting stressors or avoiding thinking about them) and increased psychological distress. ... BUT the operative word is "associated" not "caused"
Right, avoidance may not be a good coping strategy at large, but that doesn't mean people shouldn't be extended the courtesy of being able to choose to avoid exposure in certain contexts. Ideally exposure therapy for trauma should be done in a controlled setting, like therapy.
Heck, I don't have PTSD but I don't particularly like seeing sexual violence in movies or television shows and more than once I wish I had been warned about it ahead of time.
From my point of view, trigger warnings are courteous. Its not my job to tell people how to live their lives. If someone asks me in good faith to let them know before I talk about something that might disturb them, I take that seriously because I'm not a jerk.
The idea that trigger warnings constitute some kind of creeping Orwellian thing is nuts to me. The whole point of them is "I'm going to say this!"
try not to be one.
Re: Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
It feels like wasted effort in this context then. The article talks a lot about the university setting specifically, you can't just not engage with your course material and expect to have the same educational outcomes as someone who did. It seems like it'd be more effective for majors to list their trigger warnings before the course even starts with the understanding that if you can't handle the content then you shou…
Yes you can. You can choose to skip a particular lecture if it's covering particularly triggering topics. If the lecture is particularly important, you can approach the professor about dealing with the lecture content in a more sensitive one-on-one context, or see if the lecture is recorded such that you can watch it later when you have more mental spoons to deal with it. > it limits the teacher's options because sud…
Why is this a consent issue? Lots of intro to sociology classes do a lesson on the Nacirema, race and violence are massive components of studying mid 20th century literature, and plenty of other fields of study have lessons that are meant to convey an emotional context and not just an informational one and they do this often with surprise elements. Labeling that as traumatic and non-consensual glosses over the part where the main people who seem to be reporting trauma from these lessons are people who already had trauma and are clearly still influenced heavily by it or they wouldn't need trigger warnings. Calling it a consent issue frankly is just a dog whistle.
And if skipping the lecture is a valid choice for learning then why does the professor need to be contacted afterwards? The professor already selected the information they felt was relevant and presented it in the fashion they felt was the most useful to the class. Your viewpoint only seems to make sense if the default assumption is that emotional information isn't a priority for the instructor but that doesn't jive with how a large swathe of the humanities and social sciences are often taught.
Re: Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article does mention... > Consider a meta-analysis of 39 studies in 2007 by Sam Houston State University in Texas that found a ‘clear, consistent association’ between using avoidance-based coping strategies (that is, staying away from upsetting stressors or avoiding thinking about them) and increased psychological distress. ... BUT the operative word is "associated" not "caused"
People who can be expected to experience increased distress from the topic are much more likely to choose to avoid it, so I'm not surprised in the least by that association. Also from the article: > critics argue that the avoidance of potentially upsetting material is actually a counterproductive approach because it offers no chance to learn to manage one’s emotional reactions. This is wrong. You don't learn to manag…
And what does a desensitzing theraphy do? In ever increasing steps push you into trigger material, be it spiders, heigths or whatever.
Nobody has a right to be bubbled. We are all in this together, and not facing the world is a coping strategy that leads to dependencies, dependencies lead to effectively self-imprisonment. Which then is blamed on those people used as shield. Which just generates more conflict, that is then again delegated, in a recursive circle, until basically discurs-controll is archieved, holding oneself as Hikikomorihostage.
Re: Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am no expert but it was my understanding that therapy for trauma often includes exposure to triggering stimuli precisely because it's not a realistic option to just hope you don't run into something triggering "in the wild" for the rest of your life.
My dog was afraid of taking a bath. I fixed this by rewarding her for coming into the bathroom. Once she was comfortable, I got her into the tub and rewarded her. After 15 minutes of "exposure therapy" she loves jumping into the tub and it's easier for both of us when she's stinky. I'm pretty sure people work similarly but it's hard to reward them with dog food.
People aren't dogs to be trained. To an extent, to be human and to recognize other people's humanity is to accept and accommodate their irrationality where doing so isn't particularly onerous to you.
Re: Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material
#26Yeah, that's because they had to watch the content anyway. Trigger warnings allow people to avoid triggering content, or to delay consuming the content until they're in a better frame of mind. If you say "This content has X, Y, and Z, and you have to consume it right now" the fact that you warned them isn't going to do much.
It feels like wasted effort in this context then. The article talks a lot about the university setting specifically, you can't just not engage with your course material and expect to have the same educational outcomes as someone who did. It seems like it'd be more effective for majors to list their trigger warnings before the course even starts with the understanding that if you can't handle the content then you shou…
What is material that is supposed to capitalize on surprise? It is one of those arguments that make these all discussions completely outside of my experience. I never seen material that would be harmed by that. Not even movies and I hate spoilers.
I was never triggered. I was never triggered by trigger warning either, I just don't care. For all I know, veterans and raped or abused people can have all the warnings they want and nothing whatsoever changes for me. They can not have them and nothing whatsoever changes for me.
These things are rarely core issues of lectures, triggers based on what I read can be completely random things (not actual depictions of rape, but smell, sound color) which may make them useless for most. And the hostility of the whole debate from anyone except those few directly affected is puzzling. Like, one 100 people will skip that one lecture that has detailed depiction of rape. Big deal.
Plus traditionally, education went out of its way to euphemise rapes and sex generally away. Like, calling using the word rape to characterize rape in old text did not used to be common. They used to prefer to talk about it in codes.
Re: Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material
#27Trigger warnings aren't meant to be useful; they are a manner of virtue signalling.
Complaining about things you think are virtue signaling isn't meant to be useful; it's a manner of virtue signalling.
Re: Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material
#28In other news: Epilepsy warnings don't help people cope with flashing images.
Re: Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material
#29Re: Trigger warnings don’t help people cope with distressing material
#30Trigger warnings aren't meant to be useful; they are a manner of virtue signalling.
Trigger warnings are harmful for society as well. Grown adults at university get coddled with the stuff, then released out into the cold, cruel, uncaring world. Not a good turn for society.