I saw the Day After when it originally aired, and they had been warning about how disturbing it was for at least a week before it was broadcast. I was a teen and don't remember being any more freaked out than usual with the Cold War going on. In my bedroom, I had a map of the US and used to throw darts at it to imagine what a nuclear war might be like. I even drew a blast radius with a compass around my town based on the available information to see just how toast I would be. The point I'm making is that I was just a little obsessed with nukes. I had surplus government nuke literature and stuff, and the Day After was nothing to me. Old hat. I was an expert, after all.
But the next day, teachers actually brought it up in school and asked if anyone had any questions or wanted to talk about it.