While scrolling through the New York Time's Room for Debate, I came across the article, Do Trigger Warnings Work? and it discusses whether warnings before content that may upset individuals actually makes a difference or not. A professor from the University of Tulsa, Elana Newman, explains how she always warns her students about certain topics before reviewing them in class. She argues how there are students who thank her for allowing them to prepare themselves for the topic and how she feels there may be students that though are warned ahead of time experience anxiety or discomfort still. Trigger warnings are placed before something explicit such as rape or self-harm before it is shown to the public audience, and people question the real impacts they leave on individuals. This article intrigued me and made me think about the purpose of these warnings and whether they work or not. Because of trigger warnings, do people actually benefit from being told ahead of time about certain content? I would imagine trigger warnings are a way of allowing someone to understand what they are signing up for; warnings are meant as a precaution people should take seriously if it pertains to themselves.
I feel trigger warnings work depending on the person. There are individuals who can prepare themselves in advance for what is coming or choose to remove themselves from the content altogether. Movies and television shows sometimes reveal certain scenes the viewer may find disturbing and could cause them to relive past events that affect them severely. While those individuals use these warnings as a precaution, there are others who may choose to ignore the trigger warnings altogether. There are people willing to sit through despite discomfort for reasoning such as embarrassment. I believe individuals have control over the content or topics they're willing to listen and witness when given the choice to either proceed or stop in their tracks and not move forward. The use of trigger warnings may allow someone to have a "heads up" about what may follow which can be beneficial and important if the person chooses to act.
Do trigger warnings work? Does it really depend on the individual to decide what they want to see and hear? Could they be useless? Could they be helpful? What do you think about trigger warnings and whether they can actually make a difference?
- Stephanie Ballesteros
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ReplyDeleteI have to agree with that statement when you're talking about how trigger warning do depend on the person. I feel that some students would gladly appreciate the warning but there are students who would feel uncomfortable during a scene or a topic but that wouldn't say anything at all to the teacher because they don't want to be embarrassed to get up and walkout that classroom.
ReplyDeleteTrigger warnings may work for many, as you illustrated with your point on how it depends on the person, but for some, it will only serve to pique their interest.
ReplyDeleteWarnings are courteous to those that wish to not see specific kinds of media, but in the end the content still exists, warning or not. Now, while many that heed trigger warnings are perfectly respectable people that just don't want to see that content, there are people that dislike the idea of content involving their "trigger" , and will only use trigger warnings as a platform to trash a show or musical artist for their subject matter, no matter if it tells a story or is solely meant to be a toxic representation of that trigger.
So even though they work for some, others will take trigger warnings as offensive, citing the content that warranted the warning in the first place. For some people, you can't satisfy them unless you remove content entirely, therefore, sensitive content will always trigger a few people, and the most you can do about that is to slap a warning on the front and hope for the best.