Trigger Warnings: Helpful Or Harmful To Students

Trigger warnings have been a highly argued topic amongst college professors, students, and parents. A trigger warning is defined as, “A statement at the start of a piece of writing, video, etc., alerting the reader or viewer to the fact that it contains potentially distressing material.” Some agree that trigger warnings are a good way to help students with sensitive subjects by providing caution. Others, however, object to the idea of holding back information in order to satisfy a compact amount of students. Those who have studied this topic have presented their reasons why trigger warnings may be more harmful rather than helpful to students. The effects of trigger warnings will cause students to expect others to be sensitive to their views,
Students may use trigger warnings as an excuse in order to alleviate some of their class work load. Colleen Flaherty, author of “Survey sheds new light on faculty attitudes and experiences toward trigger warnings”, states, “Quoting another surveyed professor, it says a ‘significant number of respondents worry that warnings essentially invite students to ‘avoid engaging with uncomfortable course materials.’ Indeed, this is already the experience of some respondents, like one who reports that students took the ‘warning’ as an excuse not to attend the class.’” In other words, the trigger warnings allow students to avoid a class or topic. In addition, students being allowed to forgo attending class in the name of sensitivity will ultimately have a different set of rules and regulations to follow. Suggested by faculty members from the National Coalition Against Censorship, “Some 60 percent of professors view trigger warnings as damaging to academic freedom, the report quotes numerous respondents who say they’ve changed the way they teach to avoid offending students.” Basically what this is saying is that teachers will need to change their way of teaching in order to please some students, limiting what others may