My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Calcottin woman from Gadigl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Here's some content advice for the podcast that's about to come. In this episode, we're going to be discussing the meaning of trigger warnings, where they come from, and whether or not they should be applied in our content. Good morning and welcome to the Daily os. It's Wednesday, the fourth of October. I'm Zara, I'm Billy. I'm the editor at the Daily os.
Now.
Over the last few years, we've seen the rise of trigger warnings in the content that we consume everywhere. We of the Daily Ods have used it in this podcast plenty of times, and we've also used it in a lot of our written content. But at trigger warnings actually protecting people.
And this is the evidence around trigger warnings. They trigger people, They make anticipatory anxiety go through the roof.
In today's Deep Dive, we speak to the Global Director of Men's Health Research at November, doctor Zach Seidler, and yes he is my brother, but he also happens to be an expert in the field of mental health. Before we get to that chat, Billy, what is making headlines.
The Australian Reserve Bank has kept the cash rate at four point one percent for the fourth consecutive month. The decision followed the board's first meeting under the leadership of the new RBA Governor Michelle Bullock, who said while inflation was still too high, future rises would depend on new data and risks in the economy.
A new study has found Australian parents are some of the most risk averse in the world. New data from Deacon University and Coventry University in the UK found that four in five Australian parents put limits on risky activities such as play fighting or climbing trees, and that's out of fear that their child will be injured. The study puts Ozzie parents ahead of New Zealand, Canada and the
UK when it comes to playtime risk aversion. It's encouraged parents to loosen the reins to support physical and mental development.
Work has begun to convert Hitler's former Austrian home into a police station. It's hoped the new purpose for the home, where Hitler was born in eighteen eighty nine will deter gatherings of Neo Nazi's other site. The property has been under the control of the Austrian government for several decades.
And today's good news. A one hundred and four year old woman in the US hopes to become the oldest person to ever skydive. Dorothy Hoffner performed a skydive near Chicago this week, which she hopes will be certified as a record breaking dive. Hoffner told the onlooking crowd that her age was just the number. Okay, So, Billy, the reason that we wanted to do this interview with expert Slash my brother Zach, was because you were asked to comment on how the Daily ODS does trigger warnings.
Right, Yeah, So I participated in an SBS show called Insight, and it was all about whether the trigger warnings are helpful or harmful. And my perspective was that at the Daily ODS we do use trigger warnings and that has been informed by the audience. But it became clear throughout the discussion on the show that there is mounting evidence that they potentially are not helpful, and I thought it was really important that we have a discussion about that
at the Daily Ods. Your brother is a clinical psychologist, and I know he feels very passionately about it, and he's spoken to me about it before, and I thought we should get him on and have a really honest discussion.
And I think the best part of it is that we learn as we go and we don't pretend to be experts, and I think this discussion is the best example of that. So, without further Ado, Zach and Billy.
Doctor Zach Sidler, Welcome to the Daily Ods.
Great to be here.
Billy. Now, you're a clinical psychologist and you've done a lot of research in this space. What is your position on trigger warnings?
So I think it won't be a surprise to you given the amount of DMS that I've sent to you and Daily Odds about my feelings.
Around your our troll.
I'm the troll number one troll. So the way that I see trigger warnings and the way that the research sees them is that there is no evidence that they work. There is evidence that they harm and so depending on the context, we need to be really careful about just throwing trigger warnings out the front of all of this content, especially on social media, and then throwing up our hands and kind of saying that's my responsibility done. And it's not to say that the Day the Odds has done that.
But the way that this has now become a commonplace, pseudo scientific placeholder at the front of content is really surprising and strange to me and suggests that we need to have a bit of a conversation about what is going on and what we can do in future.
I think the thing that I struggle with is that our approach has been in the audience who tells us that they do want trigger warnings. And I understand that the evidence is changing, but what do we do when the expectation hasn't.
So my answer to that is, if your audience told you to put up more content about UFO sidings, would you suddenly listen to them? If the vast majority of them said, I swear to God, I've seen UFOs, you need to put this up. You don't follow the audiences every whim.
Yeah, But I think the difference is that they're telling us that they think that we are harming them or triggering them if we don't give them that warning for sure.
So there are two issues here. The first is that your audience is largely, you know, young females, and I think that what's very important to consider contextually is the fact that most of them have grown up with trigger warnings everywhere. Yeah, so it's an expectation because it's all
they've had. All I'm asking for is for you and everyone else who's creating content to respect the audience enough to go, Actually, we're going to follow the evidence and ask and educate and bring you along on that journey around whether or not this is something worth doing. Secondly, and this is from a clinical perspective, avoidance is really harmful when it comes to things like PTSD for instance. Yeah, the best treatment around PTSD or something similar around trauma
is exposure. Is putting yourself in a situation where you're going to be exposed to the situation again so that you learn that it's not harmful. All of that is to say, you cannot put up a trigger warning and then put up harmful content. Yeah, the trigger warning doesn't suddenly get rid of the responsibility for you to put up safe, respectful content. In fact, what is happening, I think is the trigger warnings are providing a blanket. Okay,
we've done our job now for much of the media. Instead, if we get rid of trigger warnings and spend the amount of time that is needed to actually ensure that the content is safe. When we're talking about suicide, rape, domestic violence, we use the right language and then we pump information at the end, we make really clear to provide a lot of information that is going to support those young people to get the help that they need. But the fact that they're coming out and saying this
content is harmful, well, there are two things there. A trigger warning is not making it less harmful, So we need to consider what is harmful about the content and how to go about eradicating.
But it's giving them the choice.
But it's not giving them the choice. The trigger warning doesn't give them the choice. What it does is it says, and this is the evidence around trigger warnings. They trigger people. They make anticipatory anxiety go through the roof. It makes people go oh, and it gives you mental imagery. It makes you start to go, what's coming, what's it going to look? Like, how's it going to work? And it
increases anxiety. Rather than doing this thing, which I think society needs to do, which is not over fragilized society, not you know, suggest this over therapization of everybody. Rather we need to go you are resilient, you are able to cope with this. We are putting in safe content, and we're going to make sure that you get the support that you need at the end. But it's it's not right for the media to decide. I don't believe what is triggering and what is not.
But I think as the editor, if someone has gone through trauma, who am I to tell them? Well, I actually know what's best for you, and it's for you to be exposed to this content. I feel so uncomfortable taking that approach, do you know what I mean?
One percent? And I think that that's really to be respected and valued. That question and you questioning yourself around what is safe and not safe content is the pertinent question here. But you deciding what is safe and not safe for them around trigger warnings, you're making that call. You're making that call about what is safe and what is not safe. You're deciding what deserves the trigger warning.
And what doesn't I understand when it comes to mental health and wellbeing that you feel like you have a responsibility to look after them. And my response to that is you do, and the best way to look after them is to make safe content and to get rid of trigger warnings.
Is there nuanced to it, like, are there ever scenarios where you think that they could be helpful?
I think when it comes to aberge and on Torrest Islanders, when there has been depictions of somebody who has died, it's very clear there are cultural regulations and suggestions about how to go about that. When it comes to warnings more broadly around rape, domestic violence, assault, that type of thing, I think what we need to do is not have blanket rules for yes on everything. Rather we need more research, which is a very reliable answer for any psychologist to say,
to go in what contexts for which people are these useful? Instead, at the moment we're just going scattergun everywhere. Every piece of content deserves this, And I think that you might be safeguarding one person. I'm not suggesting that you're not, but you may well not be looking after another thousand or ten thousand people. And I think that we need to realize that that one person should be getting supports that they need. But the trigger warning actually does and
tell them what to do. It doesn't provide them with any support.
But it does at the end of the piece, because whenever there's a trigger warning, you also provide the help line.
Perfect, and that's exactly what is required. Let's have more of that, let's build in safety. But the trigger warning doesn't do anything for them in that interim period, whether or not they watch it or not. It doesn't offer any choice around the way that the content is going to be offered to them. Does that make sense? You put in a trigger warning, you say we're going to talk about rape, and then you do whatever you want in the middle, and then you offer supports at the end.
But no, because I don't think it's fair to say that just because we use trigger warnings means that then in the whole post we just do irresponsible reporting, like we would never report on anything irresponsible. But it just means that the audience has a choice.
But what I'm suggesting is that the choice they don't have a choice about what you report already.
And it feels like it sounds maybe like I'm not listening to you. I know that's fair, but it's more just like, this is what it's been so low, and I think it's a really important conversation about how we change it. But I'm obviously just stuck on the choice.
But it's a choice. It's the choice around what type of content they're choosing to watch. It's the choice around what type of content you decide to put a trigger warning on. There are so many arbitrary, subjective decisions that are being made here, and that's what I think should be eradicated. Rather, there should be a really clear, evidence based protocol around this. Stuff is very clearly going to trigger this population who we know is watching this, so
we're going to build it in. Otherwise, you're just building up anticipatory anxiety for people who were never going to have it before, and for other people who might actually benefit from watching this content, they're going to avoid it because they're avoiding anxiety, which is understandable. And I think, and this is hard for any psychologist to say a
bit of anxiety is useful. It's useful for them to watch the content if it is safely reported, for them to embrace and their own resilience and realize that they can get through it.
I have a question about a Star Born. I remember when that came out. In the movie there is a scene about suicide. There was a discussion about whether that movie should have come with a trigger warning because it is quite confronting and they do go into some details. And obviously they're not a media organization, so they don't have the necessity to have responsible reporting. What do you think about that movie, like, should something like that have a trigger warning?
So my response to that is the media has really clear regulations and there are the mind frame guidelines which everyone should follow around how to talk about suicide. Film and television has very similar guidelines. The fact that they don't feel the responsibility to live up to them is a totally different ballgame. When it comes to showing depictions of suicide in plays, in film, in television, they should be in consultation with clinicians, with researchers about how to
go about doing that. There are plenty of shows that I've worked on with in Australia who have asked for consultation, who've gotten lived experience to make sure that this stuff is safe. That depiction which shows method and location is not safe.
Do you remember that movie very clearly and did it follow responsible Guiden? Not at all?
And so no trigger warning was going to be safe there. What it was going to do was going to amp me up for the next hour and a half and then I was going to see it and I was
still going to feel shitty. So that's a perfect example of if you actually build in safe content and you make sure and this is across media, television, anything, you make sure that you are doing what is right by the guidelines and the evidence, you shouldn't need a trigger warning because the trigger warning would not have safeguarded that piece at all.
So we've just had a whole conversation about trigger warnings. We've talked about suicide for example. What do you think that we should do at the start of this podcast.
I feel like I should record this is not a trigger warning, enjoy the podcast. But I think that at the top of this podcast, I think that you should say we're going to be discussing the meaning of trigger warnings, where they come from, and whether or not they should be applied in all of our content. So suggesting that this is going to be an education all situation rather than a triggering one.
But isn't that still even if it's not using the term trigger warning, it's still a trigger warning.
It is so Yeah, I think that there is a way of talking about it that goes we're going to It's so it's so interesting because even the second you start to go in this podcast, we're going to discuss immediately takes you two. We're going to have a trigger warning here. Yeah, I got to think about I don't know what you would.
Maybe we use the term content advice.
Yeah, yeah, well yeah, here is some content advice for the podcast it's about to come.
Yeah. Lastly, we haven't even discussed the fact that your Zara's brother. I imagine that you two have had lots of discussions about this. Why hasn't the Daily Os not been using trigger warnings from the start?
It's a great question. She doesn't listen to me very clearly. We've got older brothers in chrome, which is terrifying. But I think that I'm really excited to be here today and to be able to discuss this. It's something that's
evolving and I think that's the most important thing. And you never want to, you know, jump it preemptively and make sure that you do something unsafe, but let's just have the conversation, because that's the way to really respect the intelligence and the experience of your audience.
Doctor Zach Saidler, thank you so much for joining the Daily Ours.
I'll see you soon.
Cheers.
Thanks for joining us on the Daily Ours. If you need someone to talk to, you can give Lifeline a call on thirteen eleven fourteen. We'll be back again tomorrow morning, but until then, have a brilliant day.