Trigger warning
Trigger warning refers to a disclaimer on a piece of media stating that it contains material that could trigger a distressing reaction to some people.[1] Trigger warnings are most often applied to material containing rape, sexual abuse, and mental illness.[2]
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Usage
Trigger warnings are used most often in articles appearing on the internet and by professors in college classrooms.
Amanda Marcotte wrote in a 2013 Slate article, "Originally, trigger warnings were short alerts put at the top of articles or blog posts warning readers that the following content could trigger known mental illnesses, such as post-traumatic stress disorder or eating disorders. The trigger warnings were intended to let readers with those conditions know to proceed with caution."[3]
In 2013, Ruxandra Looft of Iowa State University argued for the use of trigger warnings in college classrooms.[4] NPR released a survey of college professors in 2016 that found about half of the respondents used trigger warnings in their classrooms.[5]
Arguments
Opponents
Those who oppose the use of trigger warnings argue they further the coddling of already sheltered college students. They also argue trigger warnings are a threat to free speech. Writing for The Atlantic, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt said:
| “ | But vindictive protectiveness teaches students to think in a very different way. It prepares them poorly for professional life, which often demands intellectual engagement with people and ideas one might find uncongenial or wrong. The harm may be more immediate, too. A campus culture devoted to policing speech and punishing speakers is likely to engender patterns of thought that are surprisingly similar to those long identified by cognitive behavioral therapists as causes of depression and anxiety. The new protectiveness may be teaching students to think pathologically.[6][7] | ” |
Proponents
Those who support the use of trigger warnings argue they are a fitting accommodation for students with mental illness and that they foster empathy for those who have been through traumatic events.[8] A study on trigger warnings published by the University of Michigan's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts said:
| “ | The motive behind including content warnings in classes is based on the simple recognition that our students are people with lives, histories, and struggles that we are not privy to, and can’t always understand. And those lives, histories, and struggles don’t stop existing when class starts. Students carry those things with them into class and can’t be expected to turn off their emotions and forget their experiences on a whim, no matter how inconvenient they are to an instructor’s designated learning goals...The use of content or trigger warnings is not “babying” or “coddling” students as some critics suggest; it’s the recognition that the inclusion of people with mental health disabilities matters, and shifting the norms of content presentation to include content warnings to better include them is well worth the small effort it costs the instructor to note potentially distressing material.[9][7] | ” |
Footnotes
- ↑ BBC, "Trigger warnings: What do they do?" February 25, 2014
- ↑ The New Republic, "Trigger Happy," March 3, 2014
- ↑ Slate, "The Year of the Trigger Warning," December 30, 2013
- ↑ Shakesville, "How Do Trigger Warnings Fit into the Classroom Lesson Plan?" February 12, 2013
- ↑ NPR, "Half Of Professors In NPR Ed Survey Have Used 'Trigger Warnings'," September 7, 2016
- ↑ The Atlantic, "The Coddling of the American Mind," September 2015 Issue
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Philosophical Disquisitions, "The Ethics of Trigger Warnings: A Review of the Arguments," February 14, 2017
- ↑ University of Michigan, "An Introduction to Content Warnings and Trigger Warnings," December 12, 2017
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