Trigger Warnings Aren’t Helping

by Zyiah Tyler, Staff Reporter

courtesy of GETTY IMAGES

SPOILER ALERT! Trigger warnings aren’t helping in the way they should!

Trigger warnings are meant to help a social media user avoid content containing abuse, violence, and gore. These warnings are also helpful to people with PTSD or other debilitating mental disorders. However, they can’t be effective if they are used inappropriately or mocked.

The exact definition of the word trigger according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is to cause an intense and usually negative emotional reaction in someone. Trigger warnings are generally used to warn and prepare people with post-traumatic stress disorder. Now, the word has drifted into common vernacular, especially on the internet.

“The point is not to enable — let alone encourage — students to skip these readings or our subsequent class discussion,” Cornell University Associate Professor of Philosophy Kate Manne said. “Rather, it is to allow those who are sensitive to these subjects to prepare themselves for reading about them, and better manage their reactions.”

Manne’s words are applied to the college experience, a time where people are growing intellectually and emotionally. The opposing side may say that it’s a form of coddling. The term safetyism comes to mind. It refers to a belief system or culture that safety should be prioritized above anything else, meaning that people are unwilling to make trades based on moral or practical concerns.

“[The culture of safetyism] deprives young people of the experiences that their antifragile minds need,” authors Greg Lukianoff, Adam Goldstein, and Pamela Paresky said in their book “The Coddling of The American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure. “Thereby making them more fragile, anxious, and prone to seeing themselves as victims.”

There’s an unhelpful aspect to trigger warnings that surfaces on social media. The content warnings of food cause more harm than good. People with eating disorders need to know that eating is good which results in their good health. If a trigger warning is tied to food then that makes said person think that food is bad, which harbors a terrible mindset for those people. This ties into the silly or mocking aspect of trigger warnings.

“And if we create this expectation that we should constantly be tiptoeing around people’s potential triggers then it creates this really claustrophobic environment where we’re too afraid to say things and ask questions because we don’t want to trigger or offend anyone,” YouTuber Madisyn Brown said.

In Brown’s video, she calls the generation (Gen Z) a very self-centered one.

Trigger warnings aren’t helping people get better, especially on TikTok: the most popular and toxic social media app.

Putting “silly” trigger warnings on a post is simply mocking those who actually have PTSD or a form of it. It comes off over-protective in the eyes of some and it's important in others.

Trigger warnings should be used in an appropriate manner. They are used to help, and they shouldn’t be thrown around in places where it’s unnecessary. Especially in a casual conversation.