Trigger Warnings Don’t Work, Cause People To Avoid Underlying Content, Studies Show

Trigger warnings have been around for decades but exploded on college campuses more recently as more students claimed to have suffered various traumas in their lives.

In 2015, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt wrote their seminal work on trigger warnings for The Atlantic, arguing that trigger warnings help people avoid their fears, which prevents them from moving on and getting better. The two academics explained that if someone who has a terrifying experience in an elevator and develops a fear of elevators is not warned to stay away from them for the rest of their life. Instead, they are gradually reintroduced to elevators until they are no longer afraid.

Trigger warnings were initially intended not to be about avoiding content but preparing those with trauma to engage in it. As we all know, this was never the case, as the warnings gave students at colleges and universities an excuse to avoid numerous works – including classics like Shakespeare and “The Odyssey.”

Occasionally, a study would come out showing that trigger warnings were useless or even harmful to students, yet they persisted with academics insisting they were necessary to combat the growing mental health crisis among young adults.

Now, however, a review of 17 studies relating to trigger warnings shows that they are, indeed, harmful. The Chronicle of Higher Education looked at the peer-reviewed studies and found that trigger warnings made things worse for individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). – READ MORE