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Content Warnings Do Not Reduce Distress, Study Shows

Caution: Content Warnings Do Not Reduce Distress, Study Shows

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/2023-october-content-warnings-distress.html

Advocates for the use of trigger warnings suggest that they can help people avoid or emotionally prepare people for encountering content related to a past trauma. But research indicates the warnings only heighten anticipatory anxiety.

Caution: Content Warnings Do Not Reduce Distress, Study Shows

Advocates for the use of trigger warnings suggest that they can help people avoid or emotionally prepare for encountering content related to a past trauma. But trigger warnings may not fulfill either of these functions, according to an analysis published in Clinical Psychological Science.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21677026231186625

48 comments

Anticorp

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If they warn you, and you still watch it, then get distressed, that's on you, man. That's a pretty low bar for accepting personal responsibility.

Tinidril

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Yes, but if nobody is paying attention to them, then why bother?

Leate_Wonceslace

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I pay attention to them.

cynar

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The people who need them, generally are more likely to notice them.

Unfortunately they get overused a lot, as well as poorly used, when they are.

Dkarma

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That's not what they're for lmfao. They're so you don't watch it at all.

OneWomanCreamTeam

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First sentence

Advocates for the use of trigger warnings suggest that they can help people avoid or emotionally prepare for encountering content related to a past trauma. But trigger warnings may not fulfill either of these functions

Kolanaki

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I think the followup is even more relevant:

Instead, warnings appear to heighten the anticipatory anxiety a person may feel prior to viewing sensitive material while making them no less likely to consume that content

Kiernian

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Thanks, I was sitting here thinking the warnings were so you could AVOID shit you didn't want to see and the headline had me questioning my perception of reality on this.

mbirth

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Yeah, I get pretty stressed out when people put CWs on stupid things like "CW: Food".

UberKitten

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that type of CW is mostly for people with eating disorders

baronvonj

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Or for vegans/vegetarians to not see meats.

Swedneck

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Then it should be cw:meat lol

baronvonj

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Fair

BananaOnionJuice

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Sounds like people that needs to avoid looking at food has a tough time being outside.

mbirth

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What’s next? A “CW: Dog” so snowflakes that like cats don’t feel offended?

sneezycat

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No, but maybe if you have been mauled by a dog you appreciate that kind of warning.

mbirth

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That’s stupid. Those pixels on a screen can’t hurt anyone. And if you think otherwise, you should seek professional help instead of expecting from everyone else to adjust to your mental issues.

VirtualOdour

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But it's kinda stupid to cry about warnings too, why shouldn't people be able to avoid content they don't want to watch? If you're such a tough guy that pixels don't scare you then you're tough enough that you can probably live through a world that chooses to make concessions in the form of content warnings for those who need or prefer them.

mbirth

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Why do these snowflakes just not filter the content like normal people? Most apps support this. Why does everybody else have to click away the CW just because a minuscule fraction of people might get irritated?

Passerby6497

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....aren't the content warnings a form of filter? Are you such a snowflake that you're absurdly triggered by having to click through something?

sneezycat

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"Snowflake is a derogatory slang term for a person, implying that they have an inflated sense of uniqueness, an unwarranted sense of entitlement, or are overly emotional, easily offended, and unable to deal with opposing opinions"

idk, you keep using this word but it applies more to your comments than to people that are just dealing with trauma...

Also, I don't use filters but I've heard from people that do that they are bad cause they might filter some things you're okay with. Context matters.

GreyEyedGhost

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If only past trauma was so easy to deal with. Perhaps a little consideration for others in a social space isn't too much to ask.

Cryophilia

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Honestly I'm sick of this shit. It really feels like we've stopped having consideration for trauma and are now just enabling it.

Trauma sucks, but you have to get over it. That's the goal. Not to live in a little bubble wrap reality. Society will not conform to your particular fucked-upness.

GreyEyedGhost

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Like most healing processes, recovering from trauma takes time. It's not reasonable to expect that everyone will be recovered from their trauma at any given time. And a society that won't give people time to heal before dealing with more of the shit they've been through is more than a little flawed. Hell, some people deal with their trauma by rejecting empathy rather than acknowledge that they've been hurt. I know I did that for decades.

Mesophar

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Are we supposed to adjust to your mental issue of being irrationally angry at content warnings?

Cryophilia

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Apparently so

UberKitten

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if CWs bother you, you can turn them off in most fedi clients

TempermentalAnomaly

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CW: Content Warnings

swan

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Local news site from my city censored the word “att*cked” and it’s the most stupid shit ever

bolexforsoup

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Just because it doesn’t pertain to you doesn’t mean it’s stupid.

Kolanaki

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I thought the point of those warnings was so people who didn't like it or couldn't handle it could just choose not to watch the content.

If seeing people die fucks you up mentally, and a video says "CW: Death" why the fuck would you watch it? Psychology is weird.

SgtAStrawberry

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I'm going to guess it is the same reason as to why someone who is super afraid of jump scares, finds them super uncomfortable and get messed up mentally from seeing them. Click and watch a video titled something like "Super Jumpscare's house of jump scares now with extra scary jump scares" with the video also containing multiple warnings about that it will contain jump scares, and then they complain and try to guilt trip the person how made the video for not including a jump scare time stamp list of every jump scare and a description of what it was in the description. Because they NEED IT to watch the video, as they can't handle jump scares.

BluesF

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From the abstract:

Findings on avoidance were mixed, suggesting either that warnings have no effect on engagement with material or that they increased engagement with negative material under specific circumstances.

hollyberries

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From my experience, CW only works if the post is completely hidden from the feed without the option to view it.

Blahaj Zone had the option to yeet that shit from the timeline entirely and it worked amazingly until a migration fucked that up leaving it broken for months and my mental health dropped off a cliff because holy fuck did I not realise most of the people I followed posted so much depressing shit that triggered my cptsd. The urge to click the button was too strong.

Its par for the Fediverse course, really. Good ideas and half-assed implementations.

Ajen

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half-assed implementations.

Some criticism might be deserved, but that seems a little harsh since they're not getting paid for it.

rimu

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I'm sorry to hear that.

Some Lemmy apps have keyword filters that may help?

hollyberries

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Definitely! Voyager has been wonderful when it comes to filtering and my filter/block list is massive. I do have the issue where the Lemmy timelines get stale quickly and All is a ghost town but its worth it to see mostly positive things. The desktop experience is atrocious.

On the microblog side, moving to an instance running Sharkey was the best thing to do as Sharkey has the feature to hide the CWs entirely.

Cryophilia

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What? You mean it's actually just performative bullshit? No way! I never would have guessed.

Ibaudia

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Yeah I mean... why would they?

aciDC14

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Wow…what a surprise.