Issue 131

What are trigger warnings and why have they become a thing?

Trigger warnings, content warnings or content notes are alerts about upcoming content that may contain themes related to past negative experiences (Bridgland et al, 2024). 

Nowadays, they are almost exclusively used in the context of trauma, although content warnings have long been around (think of TV and movie ratings that families might use to make decisions about what to watch). The term ‘trigger’ in relation to psychological trauma equates to a sensory reminder that causes symptoms or negative memories to resurface (Pederson, 2022); the sensory reminder could be anything from smell or sound to visual or other stimuli. Triggers can be a visceral reaction to an event or situation – or the cause of worsening mental health symptoms such as OCD.

The idea of including trigger warnings for books, films, lectures and other content is based on the intention of allowing consumers to make decisions to prepare themselves or avoid content that is potentially upsetting or triggering; and examples of this content may be things like (Trigger warning database, 2023):

• Sexual violence
• Hate
• Abuse
• Mental health
• Alcohol and drugs
• Blood and medical depictions
• Death and loss
• Violence
• War

Even though the term ‘trigger’ is often bandied about casually, ‘… it’s important to note that there’s a difference between being uncomfortable or offended, and having a true mental health symptom.’ (Pederson, 2022).

True reactions to ‘triggers’ are strong responses that can seem out of proportion to the stimulus.

In the academic world, trigger warnings received considerable exposure because lecturers started using them to warn their students of potentially triggering content in their coursework (Laguardia, 2017). In the library world, trigger warnings or content notes may be used by staff for making decisions about collection development and acquisition of resources; and to inform librarians and users about the content of resources.

So, adding trigger warnings to resources seems like a pretty easy and respectful thing to do – what’s the issue?

There have been two main waves of backlash against trigger warnings since their rise in popularity in the early 2000s. When feminists first began using them for warning about content relating to sexual assault and violence, the idea was to convey the seriousness of the topic and the practice soon became de rigueur for writings about any potentially distressing content (Filipovic, 2023).

The first wave of backlash accused those using trigger warnings of wrapping people in cotton wool, and the practice was viewed as antithetical to the stiff-upper-lip mentality of previous generations. While the use of trigger warnings in the 2010s went a long way toward normalising and promoting thinking and discussion about mental health, it also garnered a lot of cynicism in opponents – and even advocates – when they were invoked by individuals to complain about, for example, lecture content they disliked or disagreed with, or even content that may potentially harm or distress (Filipovic, 2023).

Trigger warnings became almost synonymous with political correctness, and the debate became a left vs right affair: people who use trigger warnings are accused of being ‘snowflakes’ at best, and infantilising and anti-intellectual at worst; people who oppose their use are accused of being ignorant of mental health and the effects of trauma, and of having no perspective about the privilege inherent in possessing robust mental health (Gust, 2016).

To a certain extent, this is still the case in 2024; although the debate did settle into a somewhat stable middle ground, where trigger warnings are still used, but not to the extremes they once were, like an article containing a comment that something was ‘so awful it made me want to throw up’ requiring an eating disorder trigger warning (Filipovic, 2023).

Now, we are used to seeing trigger warnings in social media posts and at the beginning of books and presentations; and although there is some fear that they contribute to a culture of avoidance, their use does seem like a small thing that comes down to respect for others:

Is it really that taxing on you to have to see a trigger warning, comparing to someone else being catapulted back into the worst moments of their life without warning? (Clarke, 2024)

Seems like a no-brainer, right? And yet, there are still those who are not fans – and this time they’ve got scientific evidence.

In 2022, Bridgland et al published ‘A Meta-Analysis of the Efficacy of Trigger Warnings, Content Warnings, and Content Notes’, and this has been used extensively by journalists to explore the idea that trigger warnings are useless at best, and actually damaging at worst. Spoiler alert: the conclusion is that ‘Trigger warnings should not be used as a mental health tool’ (Bridgland et al, 2023).

What the scientific evidence tells us is that trigger warnings do not help people to

• Reduce the negative emotions felt when viewing material
• Avoid potentially distressing material
• Improve the learning/understanding of that material

(Bridgland, A Meta-Analysis of the Efficacy of Trigger Warnings, Content Warnings, and Content Notes, 2023)

Furthermore, the results of this study show that ‘trigger warnings in their current form are not beneficial, and may instead lead to a risk of emotional harm’ (Bridgland et al, 2023) – for example, the study showed that trigger warnings reliably increased anticipatory anxiety in participants, and in some cases, that individuals may be more drawn to engage with negative material.

Extrapolating these conclusions for the purposes of looking at the issue through the lens of a school audience, one can see that there is certainly a risk that adding trigger warnings will encourage some students to seek out these materials rather than avoid them – it is, after all, a form of tagging.

Well, what’s this got to do with SCIS, anyway?

As cataloguers of items for schools, making decisions about describing, tagging, labelling, censoring, advising and warning about resources is most definitely in our field of interest! And we have registered an enduring popular desire from school libraries that we add metadata about content to records for the resources we catalogue.

Currently, when we catalogue resources, we add SCIS and ScOT subject headings. These are controlled terms – terms from a set list – which provide consistency for users searching for particular topics. Some records will already have metadata – via the subject headings – about potentially problematic content: for example, the subject headings Depression (Psychology) or Racism. But we do recognise that some schools use tags or other labelling to identify resources containing certain content, and this an enhancement to our records we are discussing making at SCIS.

The current debate among SCIS cataloguers includes questions like:

• How do we reconcile the evidence about trigger warnings with the desire of school libraries to add tags and metadata about content in resources?
• Who makes the judgement about what content requires a warning or a tag? What qualifications do they need?
• Do we just add warnings if they’re actually on the item?
• Do we add warnings if we find or look for metadata about the item elsewhere?
• Do we want set statements, or free text?
• What about adding a consistent warning note for resources with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content?
• What about consistently adding controlled target audience (age level) data?

Trigger warnings vs content notes

One of the big challenges for us is that we are qualified librarians and information specialists – but most of us are not qualified teachers. Making value judgements about content and age-based target audiences sits outside our current comfort zone. Adding metadata about content and target audiences which we’ve sourced from outside the item itself takes time; and we would have to agree on guidelines to ensure that we’re all cataloguing consistently.

Given the evidence about trigger warnings, and the psychological definition, the pragmatic thing for SCIS to begin doing is to enhance our records with more metadata about content. Content notes are more congruous with our aim to describe content objectively, rather than making value judgements about it, as far as possible.

This is not to say that it’s impossible! In the meantime, we will endeavour to reach a middle ground where we can provide enough rich information for the final decisions about labelling and classifying to be made locally at the school library level, where the most appropriate assessment of item and audience can be undertaken.

Watch this space for the next enhancements to SCIS records!

References

​​Asnicar, S. (2024, March 5). The use of trigger warnings in educational materials, media content, and training programs. Retrieved from Diversity Australia Blog: https://www.diversityaustralia.com.au/the-use-of-trigger-warnings-in-educational-materials-media-content-and-training-programs/ 

​Bridgland, V. (2023, August 18). A Meta-Analysis of the Efficacy of Trigger Warnings, Content Warnings, and Content Notes. Retrieved from Clinical Psychological Science: https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702623118662 

​Bridgland, V., Jones, P., & Bellet, B. (2022, August). A Meta-Analysis of the Efficacy of Trigger Warnings, Content Warnings, and Content Notes. Retrieved from Life in mind: https://lifeinmind.org.au/a-meta-analysis-of-the-efficacy-of-trigger-warnings-content-warnings-and-content-notes 

​Clarke, L. (2024, May 24). Choice words. The Big Issue, p. 39. 

​Filipovic, J. (2023, August 14). I was wrong about trigger warnings. Retrieved from The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/09/trigger-warnings-feminism-teen-girls-mental-health/674759/ 

​Gildersleeve, J., Bryce, I., & Cantrell, K. (2022, December 21). Proceed with caution: the trouble with trigger warnings. Retrieved from The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/proceed-with-caution-the-trouble-with-trigger-warnings-192598 

​Gust, D. O. (2016, June 14). I use trigger warnings - but I'm not mollycoddling my students. Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2016/jun/14/i-use-trigger-warnings-but-im-not-mollycoddling-my-students 

​Laguardia, F. e. (2017). Trigger Warnings: From Panic to Data. Retrieved from Journal of Legal Education, vol. 66, no. 4: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26453524 

​Nelson, L. (2016, September 27). Why trigger warnings are really so controversial, explained. Retrieved from Vox: https://www.vox.com/2015/9/10/9298577/trigger-warnings-college 

​Pederson, T. (2022, April 28). What are triggers, and how do they form? Retrieved from Psychcentral: https://psychcentral.com/lib/what-is-a-trigger 

​Raven, T. (2023). Guidelines for First Nations collection description. Deakin, ACT: National and State Libraries Australasia. 

​Suk Gersen, J. (2021, September 28). What if trigger warnings don't work? Retrieved from The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-if-trigger-warnings-dont-work 

​Trigger warning database. (2023). Retrieved from Trigger warnings database: https://triggerwarningdatabase.com/ 

​UM LSA. (2021, January 28). An introduction to content warnings and trigger warnings. Retrieved from University of Michigan College of Literature, Science and the Arts: https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/inclusive-teaching-sandbox/wp-content/uploads/sites/853/2021/02/An-Introduction-to-Content-Warnings-and-Trigger-Warnings-Draft.pdf