One oft-discussed feature of Mastodon as compared to (say) Twitter or Facebook is the use of content warnings (aka trigger warnings) to allow people to avoid content they don't wish to see. I find it valuable when news programs state in advance that they will show disturbing violent images, as these images haunt me and can give me nightmares. This study is a meta-analysis of the effects of trigger warnings. Overall, the researchers conclude, the effects are negligible. It's easy to misread this, as (say) Donald Clark does. "(They) not only have no effect on affective responses to negative material or on educational outcomes (t)hey do, however, reliably increase anticipatory affect... In other words, stop doing it." Sure, overall, the effect is negligible. But it doesn't matter what the overall effect is, what matters is whether trigger warnings help the people who need help. These studies make no attempt to differentiate (relying either on Mechanical Turk or undergraduate students), thus trivializing the impact, and leading to what is ultimately uncaring advice to "stop doing it".
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