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Every time I talk about Content Warnings, there somebody that feels the need to point to a meta-analysis in psychology that supposedly proves that trigger warnings were useless.

I usually ignore it, because Content Warnings on the Fediverse have a broder use that the initial intended purpose of trigger warnings, i.e. helping people suffering from PTSD to avoid material that may trigger an anxiety attack. But today, I decided to actually look at the study.

https://osf.io/preprints/osf/qav9m

First, it appears the meta-analysis actually define trigger warnings in a way that is close to some of the more common use of the Content Warnings on the Fediverse: “Trigger warnings, content warnings, or content notes are alerts about upcoming content that may contain themes related to past negative experiences.”. So, it turns out I was wrong about that.

But what are the conclusions of that meta-analysis? “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.”

Basically they conclude that:
1) CW are not very effective at making stressful content less stressful;
2) there is however no proof that people are avoiding material when there is a CW on it.
So they advise to not use them “as a
mental health tool”.

But here is the thing. On the Fediverse, Content Warnings are first and foremost a tool of consent. They allow you to engage with some material in your own terms, rather than being passively fed them.

Moreover, a recurring critic addressed to other social websites is that everything on it has the same level of importance: news about wars and pictures of cats occupe the same space and may be next to one another. When used correctly, CW help to address this problem. Selfies of my friends are no longer found right next to pictures of dead children or rape testimonies. I have no proof of this, but I strongly suspect this is why the Fediverse feels a lot less bleak and anxiety-inducing to me. I still see depressing news, but they are now there separate thing always to be a constant background news I have to scroll past every time I want to look at some art.