...learning to control what kinds of media are encountered on the net is now a part of growing up...
Don't underestimate the power of youth. The old ways won't continue unchallenged.
On the other hand, the 'power of youth' works both ways - it seems like a non-negligible percentage of youth in the West favour more censorship, not less - witness the rise of 'trigger warnings' and 'safe spaces' on university campuses, for example. Their aims might be quite different to those of a semi-authoritarian government, but the censorious impulse is the same.
Safe spaces are not fundamentally different to ordinary social spaces with rules. Was the introduction of anti-bullying efforts in schools some alarming new dawn for censorship?
Some people might be triggered by them, but real triggered are as likely to be, say, a scent that has become associated with the traumatic event because it was present at the time. "Trigger warnings" are based on a kind of intellectual association which had little relation to his actual triggering works but a lot to do with his run out the mill offense works.
Real triggering can only meaningfully be addressed with sensitivity to actual individual triggers, and any meaningful eastbound and agree disagree would be highly lesson-specific. The modern phenomenon of "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces" if just privileging a certain set of political sensitivities and aesthetic preferences, not addressing actual safety from trauma triggers.
It really depends on the person. Some people who've had the misfortune of experiencing rape definitely do get flashbacks when rape is described to them, for example. This isn't a hypothetical thing: someone I know had this happen.
> The modern phenomenon of "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces" if just privileging a certain set of political sensitivities and aesthetic preferences, not addressing actual safety from trauma triggers.
Whether or not trigger warnings help with trauma, they are mostly harmless. I'd be inclined to err on the side of caution here, given that most of the people with the biggest problem with trigger warnings tend to be people who wouldn't need them anyway.
Safe spaces don't just exist to avoid trauma, and the reason they exist isn't political. They exist to allow people excluded by mainstream spaces to participate. For example, rape survivors may find it difficult to participate in spaces where people make "jokes" about rape, for fairly obvious reasons.
Though trigger warnings don't mean the work is "bad", just it might cause problems for a small fraction of viewers.