How to share experience in social media can cause anxiety to other users

Have you ever asked someone how their day was, or talked freely with a friend, just to tell you a terrifying story that made you feel worried or emotionally exhausted?

This is called “Dropping of trauma“. It is when someone shares something traumatic or disturbing, not checking first if the person they talk to have the ability or willingness to make this information.

Dropping trauma is not recent and you probably experienced it (or accidentally did it yourself) at some stage of your life.

But now, with the boost in social media platforms, such as Tiktok, the risk of experiencing trauma has increased exponentially.

People often ask Tiktok for support or validation. And because the thicket algorithm is based on comments, it often happens that highly emotional stories Gather adhesion and become viral.

My colleagues and I wanted to understand more about throwing trauma on the thicket. IN Last examinationWe found that people often divide their trauma into tiktok. And this is usually done without warning the trigger.

Tiktok and mental health

It is estimated around 75% of the population At some point in their lives, they experienced a traumatic event. This may include exposure to abuse or neglect in childhood, violence, natural disasters, the death of a loved one or another event that is unexpected, disturbing and causes a long -term impact on physical or mental health.

Tiktok can be vital Source of support And validation, especially for juvenile people who dealt with trauma and who may not have enough offline support.

Previous studies have shown that Tiktok provides a platform for talking about such things Body image Fears, searching for support and information about sex and sexual varietyAND Employment.

But while Tiktok can be a great place for community, support and validation, at the same time it can be a habitat for shedding trauma.

Importantly, sharing trauma on social media risks to expose other users Replacement traumatizationThat is when a person is traumatized by someone’s trauma.

Replacement trauma is the most common in people working in “first line“Work, such as paramedics or therapists who regularly cope with trauma. However, anyone can be threatened. Factors, including personal experiences, personality traits (such as empathy), support systems and coping strategies They all play a role In whether someone can experience substitute trauma.

IN Our studyWe decided to explore the best movies on Tiktok with one or more of five hashtags related to trauma: #traumatok, #trauma, #traumatized, #traumatic and #traumabond.

We looked like the most watched 50 films from each hashtag. At the time of our analysis, in December 2022, these 250 films had 296.6 million likes, 2.3 million comments and 4.6 million actions.

#Traumato

We found that most of the films (about 67%) come from people dividing their trauma. In many cases, sedate injury was discussed, including abuse of children, violence and death.

Our study also showed that some films (about 22%) came from people who claimed to be “experts” in trauma. They used a platform to talk about symptoms and treatment of mental illness related to injury.

It is worrying that most “experts” (84%) did not reveal their credentials. And only a miniature part (2%) stated that they were licensed psychologists, advisers or medical specialists (who were trained in the field of treatment based on evidence or tips on mental health).

Other films were more general content of mental health with a mixture of hashtags, such as “fear” and “depression”, or were to be amusing, using memes or jokes about trauma.

One of the most disturbing things we found in our study was that only 3.7% of films had some form of a trigger warning. The trigger warning, often a verbal statement of the creator, a text in a film or signature, aims to inform the recipients that potentially disturbing content is discussed in the film.

One of the limitations of our study was that we did not look at the experience of users related to watching these films. We also did not examine the discourse on applications such as comments and video answers.

We can’t definitely say how it is for people, especially juvenile people or people with living experience of trauma, watching and interaction with these films. The discovery of this should focus on future research.

Liberating warnings are vital

None of this means that sharing stories, even traumatic, should never happen. In fact, we know Support for others It is necessary to heal from trauma. This can be facilitated, among others, by sharing stories in social media.

But to do it safer for everyone, Tiktok should encourage liberating warnings, and the creators should exploit them in films in which trauma is available. This can give users the option of “resignation” and rewind if they think that they may not be able to listen at that time.

For people consuming movies on Tiktok and other platforms, it is vital to watch out for disinformation and critically think about the information they see, looking for further advice from other sources.

If you feel concerned about the content that you see on social media, look for support from healthcare.

If this article has raised problems for you or you are worried about someone you know, call Lifeline to number 13 11 14.