I’m going to make a very strong statement, and then defend that statement in this short essay. Here it is: Engaging in or reading internet arguments will make you mentally ill.
Imagine
waking up on a beautiful day, hazy sun-rays peeking through the blinds, the
aroma of fresh-brewed coffee in the air. Everything is magical. And then, out
of nowhere, you begin to hear the voices – those constant voices – always
bickering inside your head. The ones that never leave you alone.
You’re not schizophrenic. No – You’ve been
reading comments on a blog or scrolling through a never ending Facebook news feed.
This
constant flow of opinions and attacks from mostly-anonymous armchair philosophers
eats away at our sanity. Ask me how I know. Once upon a time (a month ago), I would
stroll past CNN articles just to read the comments section. It didn’t even
matter what the headline was, people in the comments section would inevitably
call one another racist, stupid, and the discussion would always (for some
inexplicable reason) head into a debate on religion. How could comments on an article about homeless kittens devolve into people issuing death threats to one
another? Good question.
Somebody
once said the best thing about the internet is that it gives everyone a voice,
and the worst thing about the internet is that it gives everyone a voice. And it
not only gives us a voice, it gives us a megaphone from which to spew every
sort of complaint we’ve ever dreamed up.
Civil
discourse is a rarity online because of the nature of the internet itself.
While a sane person might hesitate to call random strangers idiots to their
faces, we might do it several times a day online and think nothing of it. We
get the immediate payoff of acting aggressively toward someone with whom we disagree
without any fear of reprisal. And yet we walk away from the “conversation”
feeling both victorious and dirty at the same time. We’ve lost a part of our
humanity by surrendering to our animal instincts and devaluing another person
because it makes us feel superior.
But if you’re
like me and merely read arguments without commenting, it can be even more
frustrating. You walk around all day long with foreign voices in your head,
arguing with one another about the most pedantic issues. Does anything get
resolved from this? Do you feel better or worse after scrolling through pages of
folks calling each other morons and idiots? This routine slowly chips away at
our sanity over time.
And to my
fellow Christians, for the love of God (literally) please stop hurling insults
at people online. I don’t care if they insult and poke fun at all that you hold
dear, your pithy remarks are not adding light to the conversation. I’ve had
very edifying and fruitful discussions with atheists and agnostics in person,
but rarely has this happened online. If you feel that you must argue online,
dear Christian, then please don’t repay an insult with an insult, but show
respect, patience and humility at all times. You have no excuse.
/rant
