Someone is wrong on the internet. Is it I?

Something to ask before joining the next social media pile-on.

On Easter morning, I left my smartphone home from church for the first time in years.

I had spent most of Saturday helping a brother-in-law rip up and replace a rotten bathroom floor, and I hadn’t crawled into bed until midnight. By the time my kids finished eating breakfast Sunday morning, we were already running late. I didn’t have the energy to rush upstairs and grab my phone.

And I liked it.

Most of my smartphone use at church is related to worship―reading scripture, following along with hymns, and taking notes of ideas that strike me. But this Sunday, I felt more refreshed and renewed as I listened to sermons and sang Easter hymns without the remotest possibility of checking email or receiving a text. After church, I lingered and talked to more people than usual.

That night, phone securely back in my hand, I was checking in on X when I saw a post that said, “Literally the least surprising result ever!” It referenced a post by British journalist Fraser Nelson saying:

“A surprising result from Jonathan Haidt's research is that religion seems linked to better mental health in young people.

“It's a rare chink of light in an otherwise bleak picture on the effects of smartphones on teenagers.”

My initial reaction matched the sarcasm of the comment that drew my attention: Of course an active faith life provides a mental health boost for many people! I wondered what anti-religion ideas had made this surprising.

So I started typing my own smart reply about this no-surprise surprise. But before I clicked “Post,” I read the other comments:

“It’s not surprising for those of us who are religious.”

“Why in the world is this surprising?”

“Surprise?”

In all, Nelson’s post got nearly 150 comments and more than 250 shares, many of which called him out for being surprised by the obvious.

Before adding my remark to that chorus, I read the article Nelson linked to, an article that he wrote about the teen mental health crisis and religion. His story begins with an invitation to a Jewish Shabbat dinner where he was required to leave his smartphone outside. Having just left my phone home from church, I was hooked. What would his experience reveal about my own?

Many of the people rolling their eyes at Nelson’s “surprise” would be surprised to find out that he is Christian churchgoer—not some simplistic secular commentator shocked to learn that religion is more than just a burden on society. I thought his article was one of the best I’ve read recently about technology’s effect on teen mental health. “Surprise” might not even be the right word to describe Nelson’s reaction to being told that faith protects teens’ mental health, because he wasn’t caught off guard.

So instead of adding one more “No surprise here,” I responded about how Nelson’s story resonated with me, given my recent experience of a smartphone-less Easter service. I decided I may leave my phone home — or shut it off — more often.

I couldn’t help but wonder whether many of the people who commented on Fraser’s story with a bit of smug ridicule had bothered to read his article. It’s common to re-share a viral social media post without reading the original link. It reminds me of the classic XKCD comic in which a character cannot go to bed because “someone is wrong on the internet.”

he internet makes it easy to give a knee-jerk reaction to other ideas. As the author Rebecca Solnit recently wrote in a sarcastic guide for commenting online, “Do not read the whole original post or what it links to, which will dilute the purity of your response … Listening/reading delays your reaction time, and as with other sports, speed is of the essence.” 

This isn’t a grave social ill. The pile-on about Nelson’s “surprise” was mild and inconsequential; he’s not getting canceled, and he’s not harmed by a few hundred short remarks about his “surprise,” not all of which were sarcastic. But it betrays a human tendency to react quickly, to show which camp we’re in, to show someone else’s error, even if we are wrong about their error.

Last year, I wrote in Discourse Magazine about the irony surrounding Coleman Hughes’ bombshell allegation that TED had suppressed his talk because of a critique by the psychologist and author Adam Grant. But Grant’s excellent book Hidden Potential, released shortly after Hughes’ allegations went public, makes a similar argument as Hughes’ talk: It’s time to stop judging people according to what demographic category they fall into. If the two had talked to each other instead of reacting to each others’ online ideas, they may have coauthored a fantastic article … that no one would have angrily retweeted.

“Disagreement goes viral. Our common ground goes missing,” I wrote at the time. Hot takes get hot while cool, reasoned understanding of the other side (and our common ground) stays cool.

Ironically, many of the people reacting righteously to Nelson’s “surprise” probably had occasion last week to read the New Testament story of the last supper. In the biblical account, Jesus tells the 12 disciples that one of them will betray him. None of them pointed fingers at each other. Instead, they each asked humbly, “Is it I?”

That’s the question I asked myself when I read Fraser’s article.

Was Fraser wrong on the internet? Was he completely ignorant of the benefits of religion? Or was I wrong when I judged his message?

By reading his ideas instead of automatically reacting, I learned something about myself and about him. I strengthened in my resolve to set my phone aside more often.

In the grand scheme of things, 240-character social media posts written in a few seconds while scrolling a news feed don’t matter much.

What does matter is the intellectual charity to ask, “What can I learn from this person?” and the intellectual humility to ask, “Someone is wrong on the internet; Is it I?” Without these attitudes, we end up disagreeing with people who agree with us.