Remote Triggers: Misophonia, Technology Non-Use, and Design for Inclusive Digital Spaces

TL;DR

Misophonia presents strong aversive reactions to specific sounds and visuals, yet remains under-recognized clinically. The study uses 16 semi-structured interviews to examine how misophonia shapes technology use, coping strategies, and design opportunities across social media, video conferencing, and leisure platforms. It proposes a design framework with five principles—disaggregate audiovisual control, real-time sensory filtering, sensory predictability, collaborative boundary negotiation, and selective visual management—to reduce exclusion and support participation. Findings highlight both validation-seeking and epistemic trauma in online spaces, underscore the burden of disclosure, and argue for trauma-informed, user-centered design that rethinks platform defaults to accommodate sensory diversity.

Abstract

Misophonia, characterized by intense negative reactions to specific sounds or related visual cues, remains poorly recognized in clinical settings yet profoundly affects daily life. This study examines how individuals with misophonia experience and sometimes avoid technology that amplifies their triggers. Drawing on 16 semi-structured interviews with U.S. adults recruited from online communities, we explore how social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, along with remote communication tools like Zoom and Discord, shape coping strategies and patterns of non-use. Participants described frequent distress from uncontrollable audiovisual content and food-related behaviors during virtual gatherings. We propose design interventions -- including channel-specific audio-visual controls, real-time trigger detection, and shared preference tools -- to better support misophonic users and reduce exclusion in increasingly mediated social and professional contexts.

Figures (5)

• Figure 1: Design Principle I: Disaggregate Audiovisual Control. Move from coarse-grained, platform-level controls (mute all vs. hear all) to fine-grained, individual-level controls that let users customize sensory input per participant or content source. Sensory experiences are inherently personal—what's distressing for one user may be unremarkable for another. Platform-level controls force binary choices; individual-level controls enable nuanced participation through per-person volume sliders, selective video display, audio channel separation, and content-level filtering.
• Figure 2: Design Principle II: Enable Real-Time Sensory Filtering. Beyond volume control, platforms should filter or reduce specific sound and visual patterns that commonly trigger sensory distress (eating sounds, repetitive movements, ASMR elements) while preserving meaningful content. Binary muting removes all audio, including speech—what's needed is selective reduction of triggering elements while maintaining communication. This requires treating audio as multiple simultaneous streams (speech + ambient + trigger sounds) rather than monolithic input, using trained audio classifiers, real-time filtering techniques, visual trigger detection, and user-trainable models to achieve >85% accuracy in identifying and reducing specific triggers without degrading speech quality.
• Figure 3: Design Principle III: Design for Sensory Predictability. Uncertainty increases distress, especially in healthcare contexts. Platforms should make sensory experiences predictable and controllable through content warnings, sensory tags, and user-controlled defaults. Participants described distress from unexpected triggers—algorithms surfacing ASMR content, colleagues suddenly eating on camera. Predictability reduces anxiety and enables proactive management through content sensory tagging (creators label audio and visual properties), sensory content warnings (similar to violence warnings, alerting users before exposure), user-controlled defaults (set preferences like "always mute ASMR content" or "auto-blur eating videos"), and preview options that allow users to check audio levels and visual content before committing to watch or participate.
• Figure 4: Design Principle IV: Support Collaborative Boundary Negotiation. Sensory accessibility is not just about individual users managing their experience—it requires negotiating boundaries with others who share the space. Platforms should facilitate these negotiations rather than forcing users to choose between self-advocacy or silence. Participants described difficulty advocating for their needs, often feeling like "Debbie Downer" or worrying about seeming demanding. Platform features can make sensory needs visible and negotiable without requiring vulnerable disclosure through shared sensory profiles (work teams, friend circles, families noting common sensitivities), pre-meeting sensory preferences (anonymized summaries like "2 participants prefer camera-optional"), gentle nudges (platform suggests considerate behaviors based on group preferences), and anonymous sensory requests (users flag concerns to hosts who address them generally without singling out individuals). This approach requires careful privacy design where users control what information is shared and with whom.
• Figure 5: Design Principle V: Address Visual Triggers Through Selective Video Management. Misophonia often co-occurs with misokinesia---sensitivity to visual triggers such as repetitive movements, eating visuals, or fidgeting. Participants described visual triggers as distinct from but often accompanying auditory ones, with one noting that seeing someone eat triggered distress even when audio was muted. Platforms should provide granular control over visual input through per-participant video blur (selective blur levels while maintaining presence awareness), motion detection filtering (computer vision to detect and blur repetitive movements while preserving communication-essential gestures), eating detection (automatic detection with options to blur or warn), user-defined visual triggers (learning to identify and filter specified patterns), and thumbnail-only mode (static images with speaking indicators). These features leverage existing video processing infrastructure while framing visual filtering as an accessibility tool to reduce sensory distress while maintaining connection.