There's no question that numerous people across the world experience trauma every day — yet the word "trauma" is increasingly being used to describe experiences that might not really be traumatic. That may not seem like a big deal, but psychologists say that the trivialization of the word might make it hard to differentiate real trauma from everyday unpleasantness.
For example, an "American Idol" contestant recently claimed to be "traumatized" by some offhand feedback from Katy Perry. A brief scan of TikTok videos labeled with the hashtag #trauma reveals the extent to which the term "trauma" has entered the casual lexicon to refer to mild annoyances or cringey moments, rather than truly traumatic events.
