Viewpoints

Teens Debate Whether Being “Triggered” Stops Important Conversations

By Adithi Vimalanathan

Sitting in the large white halls of the Notre Dame School auditorium, Mary Sanfield observed as a NYPD officer spoke on online safety. Clicking through the slideshow, the officer eventually landed on a slide with a short clip. She then warned students she was about to play a video of a car crash in which there were several casualties, and redirected students to counselors if watching the video proved to be too much for them. 

Maeve then took time to prepare herself mentally for what otherwise could have been a much more difficult moment.

“I think that was really important because, you know, watching people die in a car crash is emotionally taxing, and, also there’s a lot of loud noises and sounds and quick actions, things breaking.”

Young people today face a unique information barrier – the trigger warning. Used to accommodate sensitivity to topics such as violence, they flag information that could provoke reactions such as anxiety attacks. In higher education, educators have pushed back, arguing these shield students from valuable conversation and coping skills. While academia has had its own reckoning with the idea of triggering, young people have been doing the same. But how do teenagers, raised in an age of increasing mental health awareness, approach the subject? What is the view they bring to the table?

Most young people are in consensus that trigger warnings are indeed useful, especially with topics such as sexual assault and racial violence. Amy Zhang, a founder of Instagram page @aznactivists, encountered the need for trigger warnings when Stop Asian Hate gained traction:

“Social media is traumatizing in that sense, where it’s like you’re consuming a lot of, like devastating news … for me, I put trigger warnings… It’s like respecting other people’s boundaries and their choice of whether or not to read what we post. I want to give that choice to people.”

Today, trigger warnings are present in a multitude of settings, including everyday conversation. When beginning a sensitive discussion, Rachel Klebowski said she pays attention to her friends’ behavior: “I’ll say something and I’ll look around to see if they’re okay with me talking about it … if they seem uncomfortable I’ll be like, ‘oh okay we don’t have to talk about that.’” 

Upon hearing of this, Sanfield agreed: “that’s how you create safe spaces.” And to young people, the difference between places and people that maintain these warnings and those that don’t is incredibly valuable.

“I think it does make a difference [whether or not a trigger warning is used] because if there is one, depending on what you’re talking about, it could make the people feel, like, more at ease or understood if they’ve gone through something similar,” said Klebowski.

Despite these feelings, the misuse of these warnings has not gone unnoticed by young minds. Academia’s arguments on censorship have not fallen on deaf student ears – though maintaining that warnings are needed on social media, Griffins conceded that there was room for manipulation. Zhang even agreed that trigger warnings combat censorship by enforcing choice: “it truly is censorship if you choose not to do it [posting trigger warnings], right? Like, let’s say if you have the trigger warning, right, and you give them the choice to read through it, I don’t think that’s censorship… It’s not like we’re not giving a choice to not read it or consume it.”