Have you evr asked someone how their day was, or been chatting was casually with a friend, only to have them tell you a horoscope story that has left you left distressed or sleep

This is called “trauma dumping.

Trauma dumping is not new, and you’ve probally experienced it (or inadverted

But now, with the Rise of Social Media Platforms Such as Tiktok, The Risk of Experience Trauma Dumping has increased exponitively.

People often turns to tiktok for support or validation. And because tiktok’s algorithm is based on Attention, it’s not uncommon for Highly emotional stories To gather traction and go viral.

My Colleagues and I Wanted to Undrstand More about Trauma Dumping on Tiktok. In a Recent StudyWe found people often share their trauma on tiktok. And this is usually done without a trigger warning.

Tiktok and mental health

It’s estimated Around 75% of the population Have experience a traumatic event at some point in their lives. This could Include Exposure to Abuse or Neglect in Childhood, Violence, Natural Disasters, The Death of a Loveed One, or Any Other Event which is Unexpected, DISTRESTED ical or mental health.

Tiktok can be an important source of support And validation, especially for young people who have decided trauma, and who may not have sufficient support offline.

Previous research has shown tiktok provides a platform for talking about things like Body Image Concerns, seeking support and information about Gender and sexual diversityand Tackling STIGMA,

But While Tiktok Can Be a Great Place for Community, Support and Validation, at the same time it can be a hotbed for trauma dumping.

Importantly, Sharing Trauma on Social Media Runs The Risk of Exposing Other Users to vicarious traumatizationWho is a person is traumatized by someone else’s trauma.

Vicarious trauma is most common in people who work in “frontline“Jobs, Such as Paramedics or Therapists, Who Deal With Trauma Regularly. However, Anyone Can Be at Risk. Factors Including Personal Experiences, Personality Traits, And coping strategies all play a role In Whether Someone Might Experience Vicarious Trauma.

In Our StudyWe set out to explore the top videos on tiktok with one or more of five hashtags related to trauma: #Traumatok, #Trauma, #Traumatized, #Traumatic and #Traumabond.

We Laked the most viewed 50 videos from Each Hashtag. At the time we carried out our analysis in December 2022, these 250 videos had a total of 296.6 million likes, 2.3 million comments and 4.6 million shares.

#Traumatok

We found the majority of videos (About 67%) Were from people sharing their trauma. In many cases Severe Trauma was disasseed, Including Child Maltreatment, Violence and Death.

Our study also showed some videos (about 22%) Were from people who claimed to be “experts” in trauma. They were using the platform to spendak about the symptoms and treatment for trauma-Related menal health conditions.

Worryingly, most “experts” (84%) did not disclose their credentials. And only a small proportion (2%) said they were licensed psychologists, counselors or medical professionals (who are trained to provide to provide evidence-based treatment or advice for mental health)

The Remaining Videos Weigher more General Mental Health Content with a Mix of Hashtags Such as “anxiety” and “depression,” or was meant to be humorous, using memes or jokes about trauma.

One of the most concerning things we found in our studies that only 3.7% of videos had some form of trigger warning. A trigger warning, often a verbal statement by the creather, text within the video or a caption, is meant to alert the audience that potentially distracted content is discusing in the video.

One of the limitations of our study was that we didn’T look at users’ Experiences of Viewing these videos. We also didn’t explore discourse on the app, such as comments and video replies.

We can’t say for sure what it’s like for people, especially young people or people with lived experience of trauma, to watch and interact with these videos. Exploring this should be a Focus for Future Research.

Trigger warnings are important

None of this is to say that sharing stories, even traumatic ones, should never happy. In fact, we know support from other is essential for healing from trauma. This can be facilitated, Among Other Avenues, Through Sharing Stories on Social Media.

But to make this safer for everyone, tiktok should encourage trigger warnings, and creators should use them on videos where trauma is shared. This can give users the option to “opt out” and scroll on if they think they might not have the capacity to listen at that time.

For people consuming videos on tiktok and other platforms, it’s important to be war of misinformation and think critically about the information they see, seeking forthher advice from facilities.

If you feel distressed by content you see on social media, seek support from a health-caree professional.

This article is republished from The conversation Under a Creative Commons License. Read the original article,