Just like trigger warnings aren’t effective and actually make things worse…
Trigger warnings aren’t effective for everyone and can sometimes make things worse is what you mean
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21677026231186625
Conclusion Existing research on content warnings, content notes, and trigger warnings suggests that they are fruitless, although they do reliably induce a period of uncomfortable anticipation. Although many questions warrant further investigation, trigger warnings should not be used as a mental-health tool.
So, right in that meta-analysis, it was showing that all but one study they reviewed indicated that content warnings increased avoidance, and that in cases of avoidance anticipatory anxiety was slightly raised. Which makes sense, that’s what anxiety is. The analysis also showed that non-avoidance with a content warning did not improve anxiety responses through time to emotionally and mentally prepare for the content, compared to exposure without a content warning.
So… it gives people the choice to not engage, and offers a better outcome if you choose to not engage. Yeah, there’s more anxiety than if you didn’t come across the content warning (or content) at all, but it offers choice.
I think the how and when content warnings are used needs to be further refined and more uniformly applied, but this meta-analysis does not conclude “content warnings are a bane to society”.