That I Won’t Trigger-Warn You Doesn’t Mean I Don’t Care

It’s just that I don’t even know you.

Pixabay

I’m a member of a Facebook group that requires users sharing links to provide trigger warnings for any potentially upsetting material.

This almost made me quit the group (not that they would care or notice, nor should they), but instead I just don’t share any potentially upsetting material there, because I refuse to warn a general audience of people I don’t know that they might be upset by something.

Trigger warnings came into our lives, Buzzfeed says, in 2008, and they persist 13 years later even though researchers who’ve explored the effectiveness / danger of trigger warnings have found:

1. “…that avoiding trauma, while beneficial in the short term, can worsen symptoms in the long-term.” (Psychology Today)
2. “…trigger warnings seem to increase the extent to which people see trauma as central to their identity.” (Psychological Science)
3. “…people who saw trigger warnings judged the [potentially traumatizing] material to be just as negative, felt similarly frequently intrusive thoughts and avoidance, and understood subsequent material just as much as those who did not see trigger warnings. Whatever positive effects of trigger warnings that were found were ‘so small as…