In social media platforms such as Facebook, everything can be posted and shared. No matter what kind of information you have: true, fake, disturbing, scary, funny, or depressing, everything has its space in the platform.
With an estimated number of posts of about a billion a day, it is really difficult to control what can be viewed by everyone and those that are not. But with the advancement of technology and the help of other users, trigger warnings are now stated for disturbing videos and photos, so other people won't be able to access it without their consent.
A group of researchers from the City University of New York and the University of Waikato in New Zealand worked together to learn more about how effective trigger warnings are. Unfortunately, the new study reveals that no matter how much effort people put in these trigger warnings, these still pose little to no effect when it comes to protecting someone's emotional state, according to New York Post.
"We, like many others, we're hearing new stories week upon week about trigger warnings being asked for or introduced at universities around the world," shares Mevagh Sanson, the lead author of the study and also a psychology researcher. Sanson further explained that what urged their group to start the research is for them to know whether these trigger warnings are helpful or not. "This is the first piece of empirical work directly examining if they have their intended effect," she added.
The study, which was carried out with about 1,394 participants, includes a series of six experiments. During the research, some participants were able to focus on the trigger warning first but still chose to view the content. Others don't even dare to notice it and automatically viewed the content.
After the participants viewed the content, all of them showed symptoms of distress. What's alarming is that there was only very little difference in distress levels of people who saw the trigger warnings and those that did not, as reported by National Review.
"Our findings suggest that these warnings, though well intended, are not helpful," exclaims Sanson. But that "doesn't mean trigger warnings are benign," clears the expert.
The lead author further exclaimed that despite the result of their study, they can't still deny the fact that there is still this possibility that by encountering these warnings often, people would tend to avoid negative media even more, which could help a lot of people with unhealthy emotional state most especially people suffering from PTSD.
