Including trigger warnings at the beginning of lectures is a well-intentioned practice, but they come with several downsides that ought to be considered.
Trigger warnings, also known as content warnings, are disclaimers placed at the start of books, movies and other forms of media to alert the audience of potentially distressing material. These warnings often explicitly mention the topic that viewers should be aware of before proceeding, and they give people an opportunity to decide whether they’d like to continue before engaging with subject matter they might find troubling. Furthermore, they give audiences a chance to emotionally prepare themselves for the content they are about to engage with, meaning they will be more prepared to navigate traumatic material before it appears in front of them.
Or, at least, that’s what they’re supposed to do.
Trigger warnings have seemingly become more commonplace in recent years as the world puts a greater focus on mental health and wellbeing. It makes sense, then, that warnings would begin to precede university lectures, given the heavy subjects that are often investigated in the humanities at the postsecondary level.
But despite the good intentions, trigger warnings aren’t as helpful as they appear — and in some cases, might actually do more harm than good.
A 2023 study revealed that content warnings do very little to decrease affective responses to negative material. In other words, content warnings often fail at achieving their very purpose, not making much of a positive impact on the audience’s emotional well-being when the triggering content appears.
Unfortunately, according to the study, it seems that content warnings usually create a negative change in the audience’s emotional response due to the anticipatory effect created by the warnings. Content warnings can create anxiety within viewers as they feel the need to brace themselves for upcoming material, meaning they’re more on-edge and stressed as the distressing material approaches.
So, not only do trigger warnings do little to support their intended purpose, but they actually do the opposite by creating more stress among audience members.
Another issue worth mentioning is that a comprehensive list of potential triggers can never exist due to the varied experiences and traumas of the billions of people in the world.
People have tried, mind you. They really, really have. But even most of the authors behind these lists recognize that their own lists will never be truly comprehensive, and they quickly become a guessing game as to what subjects might be worth adding a content warning for.
Let’s take a look at a list of trigger warnings published by The Literary Lifestyle, which touts over 150 potential warnings that might be worth including in your next novel (which are thankfully alphabetized for our convenience). Items on the list range from specific to vague, including such suggestions as “attempted crimes,” “bones,” “control,” “fear,” “nightmares,” “pressure,” “snakes” and “threats.”
Unfortunately, getting this specific with trigger warnings is simply unrealistic. Authors shouldn’t be expected to attempt to conceive every possible trigger within their book — which is, again, a futile task anyway. Furthermore, if a truly comprehensive list of triggers did exist, including a full trigger warning before a literary work could take tens, if not hundreds of pages all on its own. The simple truth is that one person might find something triggering that many others might never have even thought of. There’s no definitive way to ensure that every member of the audience has a comfortable experience.
But then, we need to ask ourselves: does every experience need to be comfortable? In terms of university lectures, does it not stand against the core principles of academia to intentionally create avoidance of difficult topics for the sake of making sure no one gets upset?
University should be a place where uncomfortable topics come to the forefront of the conversation. If difficult, triggering topics were simply tiptoed around, true change would be impossible. As university students, there should be some level of expectation that traumatic subjects will come up in our work, and to a degree, we will have to engage with them anyway. Rather than navigating topics with pre-created anxiety, we should use difficult topics as a launching point to develop fruitful dialogue capable of creating truly positive change.
This is a concept I have dubbed “sitting in the uncomfortable.” I am a firm believer that we learn the most when we are dealing with topics we’d rather stay away from. If we, as academics, only ever explored topics that make us feel comfortable, we would miss out on valuable opportunities to expand our thinking in ways that we normally wouldn’t engage with. The idea that some topics are distressing isn’t something we should approach with further stress; instead, we should use them to step outside of our comfort zone and create meaningful academic experiences.
Understandably, some people might be completely unprepared to deal with certain topics due to their trauma, and there’s no shame in that. Trigger warnings might be flawed in their current form, but that doesn’t mean a new approach can’t be devised.
Rather than starting every lecture with a trigger warning, I propose that students should be invited to approach professors with their concerns ahead of time so that they can be made aware of any lectures they should be mindful of. Perhaps this invitation could be stated in the course syllabus or at the start of the first lecture.
This way, students who are especially concerned about a certain topic can rest assured that they know if and when that topic will come up in class, and students who don’t have any concerns don’t have to deal with the increased anticipatory stress that comes with content warnings. It may seem cruel to put this task in the hands of students, but I believe this approach is more in line with the fundamental principles of academia and what it means to sit in the uncomfortable.
Trigger warnings are a good start to navigating traumatic topics, and those who employ them often have well-meaning intentions. In their current state, however, they don’t align with what academia should stand for and should be rethought to better guide uncomfortable conversations at the postsecondary level.