[sbf501]

"Overall, we found that warnings have no effect on affective responses to negative material nor on educational outcomes (i.e., comprehension). However, warnings reliably increase anticipatory affect. Findings on avoidance were mixed, suggesting either that warnings have no effect on engagement with material, or that they increase engagement with negative material under specific circumstances. Limitations and implications for policy and therapeutic practice are discussed."

The characteristics of the meta analysis were largely focused on the general public and attempts to limit anxiety in that domain. But I think they forgot an entire other application: NSFL warnings.

Whenever I see NSFL I ABSOLUTELY avoid clicking, I even stop reading, and that has greatly improved my peace of mind. Learned that the hard way during the early internet: I've accidentally seen way too many horrific things I wont even tangentially mention to last me 1000 liftimes. Sure there is an anticipatory impact, but NSFL works for me!

It seems like one message here is that more moderation is needed if anticipation has similar impact as the actual content.

[roughly]

From the discussion, this stuck out:

> One possibility is that most people are not skilled at emotional preparation (e.g., reappraising emotional content or using coping strategies). Thus, the uncomfortable anticipatory period is unlikely to reflect any form of helpful action. This conclusion is supported by Bridgland et al. (2021) who asked participants to explain what they would do when they came across a trigger warning; only a minority of participants mentioned some form of approach coping strategy (e.g., reappraisal strategies, such as reminding themselves to focus on non-emotional aspects of the situation; Shiota & Levenson, 2009). Indeed, trigger warnings (including those used in the present studies) typically warn people about the distressing reactions they may have, but do not explain how to reduce these reactions.

Basically, content warnings aren’t useful on their own without additional therapeutic training, which makes sense. “Something bad is about to happen” isn’t useful if you don’t have the means or experience to prepare for it.

[lazide]

Eh, NSFL type warnings (and experience) might provide an alternative explanation?

The warnings don’t help when people’s curiosity (morbid, compulsive, or otherwise) has not been counteracted by learned experience (or tools via therapy) that they don’t like it or it doesn’t help them.

The warnings are generally not generic (aka ‘bad stuff here’), they’re usually quite descriptive of what category it covers. Far more than a NSFL warning for sure!

If someone keeps going, it’s not because they did so accidentally. They either thought it was going to be fine and they could handle it (and most can), or couldn’t stop themselves even if they knew it was going to be bad.

[slothtrop]

Makes me wonder what the overlap is between those demanding trigger warnings and those habitually stumbling upon NSFL material. I'd venture very little. Notwithstanding, I have avoided virtually all NSFL stuff and don't understand trigger warnings. However, I think content should be described when rating media.. for instance, R/M ratings could have "rape" in its description when depicted which would make trigger warnings redundant. When it comes to mere conversation (on yt or whatever), it's already redundant.

[romwell]

>Notwithstanding, I have avoided virtually all NSFL stuff and don't understand trigger warnings.

How?

Trigger warning = NSFL tag on the post

Allows you to have informed consent to consume content - or nope out of it.

For most people, "NSFL" is stuff like extreme gore.

For survivors, NSFL also includes whatever experience nearly did them in (so, literally NSFL). Hence more words needed.

Did this clear it up?

[slothtrop]

Nope. Re-read what I wrote.

[sbf501]

> if you don’t have the means or experience to prepare for it.

This is where they therapy side would be interesting to understand. Everyone is going to need a different response plan. Granted, many will be similar, but how do you teach someone to prepare?

[civilized]

I imagine the things people consider NSFL depend on their personality and background. These studies seem like they'd be more illuminating if they looked at e.g. rape content warnings for rape survivors.

Effects on the rest of us matter as well, but shouldn't be considered the whole story.

[everforward]

I typically see content flagged NSFL when it's generally repulsive regardless of background (excepting those seeking out the content). Stuff like graphic videos of beheadings or people set on fire that's upsetting even to people with no traumatic background. It's kind of like a trigger warning for an average person; background doesn't matter if the content is bad enough.

[dmix]

NSFW/NSFL is a completely different animal than trigger warnings. Only 3 categories exist: 1) no warning, 2) NSFW, 3) NSFL.

Trigger warnings are hyper-specific to the audience and could involved thousands (or infinite) potential 'triggers' and a huge variety of audience categories/groups. The burden on the platforms, writers, and general audience is magnitudes higher for some questionable value.

[avar]

Typically, but it's also watered down to the point of being synonymous with "icky" in some contexts.

E.g. you'll see posts of the inside of wasp nests and the like being marked NSFL on Reddit.

NSFW has also evolved to mean "disable preview", among other things. E.g. it's used to hide the punchline of visual jokes on Reddit.

[wpietri]

Exactly. If I'm going to warn people about content, it's because of what those specific people might struggle with. It was something I understood better once I found a piece of pretty ordinary media traumatic. And here I should say: content warning for cancer and death.

Some years back my mom was getting treated for a brain tumor. It was a glioblastoma, and as one of her surgeons explained, "This is the thing you will die from." Median survival time, 14 months.

I was very involved in her care and it was draining. She was still fighting hard at that point, but we knew that a moment would come when we'd have to decide to stop treatment. So when I saw that a local theater was having a triple feature with one of my favorite directors, Edgar Wright, I immediately bought tickets. At last, a light and fun evening.

What I had forgotten in the years since I had seen it was that in Shaun of the Dead, a zombie rom-com I adored, there is a scene where the protagonist's mom gets bitten. That protagonist, played by Simon Pegg, struggles with what to do. When his mom turns into a zombie, he is forced to shoot her. At that point I was about a month away from having to pull the plug on my own mom, and the scene was just devastating. I had to leave the theater. A decade later I've still not been able to watch the film.

I should be clear here: I'm not saying Shaun of the Dead should have had a content warning. I had seen it! And I think that sort of need is better served by things like https://www.doesthedogdie.com/ . But I am saying that it was a profoundly shitty experience. In the same way I'm going to avoid literally stepping on somebody's toes (because that hurts!) I'm going to avoid retraumatizing somebody when I can.

I think people already do that pretty naturally with things that are widely seen as disturbing. E.g., I was visiting a friend and went to pick up a textbook on his coffee table. He warned me not to open it, as it belonged to his brother in law who was studying to be a hand surgeon. I was grateful for that warning, as I can't unsee that stuff. To me content warnings are just extending that courtesy to less common horrors.

[lazide]

Sorry to hear about your loss and experience. It does sound really terrible.

The challenge society wide is, of course, where is the line, and when is it useful to do at all?

Which the study seems to be saying, it isn’t generally useful for the ‘less common horrors’, at least not with a somewhat generic warning.

[wpietri]

Sure. I think it's something we have to figure out jointly between people of different experiences. But I agree with others that definitionally the effectiveness for less common stuff can't be measured by looking at the general-audience reaction.

[dmix]

If you were a university or journalist or public figure tweeting etc, it's important to consider the generic utility.

Your example is very relevant as it's both very real and also extremely specific to your own world and context.

Trying to predict every potential 'trigger' imposes a major mental burden both on the authors/editors to find them and on the reader in the distracting way it's prominently appended to information

If you're talking to a very specific audience I don't see anything wrong with it. But making it a common/general practice seems like a completely wasteful exercise. Especially with the way the grievance crowd is never satisfied with only a few people getting special treatment, the list always grows exponentially. Then eventually there will be a mountain of trigger warnings for every potential niche.

So if we agree there's some very real (growing) costs involved, the other factor is does it provide real benefit for x% of readers? Then you can evaluate the ROI. If studies show people are even more likely to read it anyway (or maybe can't "prepare" themselves in a meaningful way) it's hard to see much benefits vs costs.

[wpietri]

I don't think one should let consideration drive paralysis. But I don't think devoting a modest amount of time to being considerate is wasteful.

That said, I think there are plenty of people who feel resentful that people are now asking them to be considerate when before they could get away with being thoughtless jerks. That's especially the case when the requests for consideration come from groups constructed as lesser (women, non-dominant ethnic groups, gender/sexuality minorities, etc). Those people can go fly a kite.

I disagree that the costs are growing. My experience is that I spend an approximately constant amount of time on consideration. On occasion, somebody points out how something I said could be unpleasant or harmful to some set of people. I think about it, usually find another way to make my point, and move on. From what I've seen, the only people who find this burdensome are the ones who are resentful that they have to think about people unlike them, and so don't end up learning. That's a choice that they can make, but I don't see any reason to coddle them.

[TomSwirly]

You probably won't read this, but when I saw that movie, my mother who was really not too different from the mother in that film, she had died some years before from some other but overall similar disease.

I had been laughing my head off until that point, but when his mother says, "I didn't want to be any bother," I started crying and just cried and cried through that whole scene you describe.

So I really feel for you. Have a virtual hug.

I have watched the film a couple of times since though. Once you know it's coming, it's just a pang.

[wpietri]

Thanks. It's the mark of good drama that it touches us, of course. But sometimes it touches us in spot that's still very tender.

[ogurechny]

Actually, there's plenty of philosophical works that analyze zombie movies from various perspectives. They are still a product of human mind providing various excuses to kill humanoid creatures en masse, and we can use them as a mirror to peek behind the facade. You happened to see it without the candy wrapper of “it's just entertainment”, and the reaction was natural. In fact, trying to keep the face because “people around are having fun” would be the inhuman choice, just as the idea that people whose relatives are dying should better stay in hospitals and their own homes, and get some special “treatment” to keep others comfortable.

In the same manner, those who've seen the war may not react well the “Top Gun” style ass kicking with a happy end. There problem here is not within them.

[SanjayMehta]

I genuinely feel your pain. Went through the same experience with my father. Multiple myeloma. 18 months.

Strangely enough it left me immune to images and videos of human suffering, and they now have no effect on me at all.

But I can't deal with anything to do with animals in pain or suffering.

I wonder if it's something to do with communication. He would communicate what was happening very clearly and was very rational about his wishes.

[wpietri]

My sympathies. I know the effect you mean. I have probably made it through the worst experience in my life, so a lot of things below that threshold just don't touch me in the same way.

I'm glad you had that much time with him and that his mind was unclouded. Even now, years later, I treasure those moments of presence.

[weinzierl]

I absolutely agree that different people are triggered by different things, and in my opinion it's good that we recognize and respect that.

On the other hand I'm convinced there are things that are universally NSFL for everyone and I believe that the parent comment is geared in that direction.

The meta-analysis seems to include only papers that deal with the first kind of trigger:

" The warning, as conceptualized by the authors of the relevant publication, was intended to notify participants that forthcoming content may trigger memories or emotions relevant to past experiences."

[XorNot]

There's a very practical use of trigger warnings that's existed uncontroversially for decades and it's the use of story tags for internet erotica, dating back to the usenet days.

Story tags there serve two important purposes: so you can find what you want to read, and not read that which you definitely do not.

[drewpc]

Does NSFL mean "Not Safe For Life"? I wasn't familiar with this term before and have never seen content labeled with it.

[andy81]

Exactly. It differentiates e.g. gore from pornography.

[Pxtl]

I usually hear it as "not safe for lunch", as in something so horrifying it will make it difficult to keep food down.

[phkahler]

>> I usually hear it as "not safe for lunch",

Decades ago, I was having lunch at my parents house. There was a newspaper on the table, unopened, just brought in. I looked over the top of page 1. Unfolded it, and there was a picture of a dead body in the street. It was a story about some conflict in another country (Bosnia perhaps). I'm OK with seeing that if I'm already reading about it and in the right frame of mind, but "not safe for lunch" really hit me that day. So much that I called the newspaper to complain about "being surprised with a dead body on the front pafe during lunch". I've never done that before or since. ;-)

[DontchaKnowit]

It is definitely "not suited for life" (or not safe for life)

As in, something nsfw is not okay for work, something nsfl is not okay fir life in general.

[tomjen3]

Yes.

The trouble with NSFW is that it covers things you want to seek out, e.g porn, but also things you might want to avoid, e.g war pictures.

[concinds]

There's a big difference between NSFW/NSFL warnings, and trigger warnings.

The former are meant for people that either actively avoid watching gore/porn, or who generally wouldn't mind but are in public/at work and want to avoid embarassment.

The latter (trigger warnings) were invented by relatively sheltered and emotionally unhealthy teens on Tumblr, many of whom incorrectly self-diagnose with PTSD and other ailments. It became more prevalent in the 2010s as these teens grew up and got jobs and media influence. It was far more of a way to signal in-group membership, than an actual scientific practice. People who didn't include trigger warnings could get criticized (and occasionally harassed) pretty hard.

It's the same as the TikTokers who say "k-word" instead of "kill", not to protect people's feelings, but to avoid TikTok's heavy content moderation. If influencers or corporations start saying "k-word" outside of TikTok in the future, you can assume it has more to do with immaturity (or the horribly-named "virtue signalling" concept, which is really just in-group signalling) than with any empirical attempt to reduce mental health impacts.