content warnings were originally and imo ongoingly most importantly an accessibility issue. afaict, all but maybe one of the studies don't delineate between members of the population this accessibility aid is supposed to help and gen pop
language politics of whether trauma is a "disability" aside, the existence of a meta-analysis over studies which purport to study whether a disability aid works by using it with people who do not have that disability is saddening
some other limitations the i don't see the authors comment on (though i haven't read thoroughly so happy to be corrected):
- the effect of different kinds of content warnings isn't discussed (some interesting dimensions are specificity and prominence)
- the fact that almost all of the studies use self-reported anxiety scales, and thus it is unclear whether content warnings increase anticipatory anxiety or increase self-reported anticipatory anxiety
like with most accessibility aids the interesting questions are not "does it help". they're "who do different forms of the aid help or harm" and "morally, when should we expect or even enforce a particular level of implementation"
looking at how other accessibility aids work is helpful for answering some of these questions. to take the classic university classroom example, you could for example look at the way some departments handle students who aren't able to take lecture notes. a student can request note taking accommodation for a particular class, and then a peer volunteer (or as a fallback university employee) will take notes for that student. just like that, we don't need to have a national debate about whether it is helpful or harmful if all university professors are forced to provide note taking services for all of their students.
anyway, i guess i'm upset because i'm tired of the ongoing massive debate and apparently research industry that completely misses the point.
language politics of whether trauma is a "disability" aside, the existence of a meta-analysis over studies which purport to study whether a disability aid works by using it with people who do not have that disability is saddening
some other limitations the i don't see the authors comment on (though i haven't read thoroughly so happy to be corrected): - the effect of different kinds of content warnings isn't discussed (some interesting dimensions are specificity and prominence) - the fact that almost all of the studies use self-reported anxiety scales, and thus it is unclear whether content warnings increase anticipatory anxiety or increase self-reported anticipatory anxiety
like with most accessibility aids the interesting questions are not "does it help". they're "who do different forms of the aid help or harm" and "morally, when should we expect or even enforce a particular level of implementation"
looking at how other accessibility aids work is helpful for answering some of these questions. to take the classic university classroom example, you could for example look at the way some departments handle students who aren't able to take lecture notes. a student can request note taking accommodation for a particular class, and then a peer volunteer (or as a fallback university employee) will take notes for that student. just like that, we don't need to have a national debate about whether it is helpful or harmful if all university professors are forced to provide note taking services for all of their students.
anyway, i guess i'm upset because i'm tired of the ongoing massive debate and apparently research industry that completely misses the point.