To Help Or To Correct?

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

I’ve been mulling over this tweet ever since it was posted about a week ago:

“Every time I have a programming question and I rly need help, I post it on Reddit and then log into another account and reply to it with an obscenely incorrect answer. Ppl don’t care about helping others but they LOVE correcting others. Works 100% of the time”

So, I don’t agree that people don’t care about helping others, I do think it’s true that we can’t resist correcting others. 

I mean, it’s easy enough to simply scroll on, but there’s a pull to say something, to call out what, in our minds, is an obvious falsehood. Whereas the same pull isn’t there when we see a request for advice. 

Why is that? Here’s my take (which you may or may not agree with):

Responding to a request for advice is, in a sense, a magnanimous act - one that requires proactivity on our part as well as intentional effort - but with no tangible return (other than the personal knowledge/satisfaction that we were able to be of service). I think plenty of us would find it easier to just scroll on.

Correcting someone, though, seems to me to be an act of emotion, a chance (perhaps) to exercise the ego. We get to stamp our authority and feel good about doing so - even though it probably takes more effort on our part. Is that because of self esteem issues, insecurities, a chance to showcase one’s superiority in a very affirmative, intentional manner? Or is it just a genuine desire to help - in which case, why didn’t we do the same thing in the first scenario above?

I don’t know the answer. I don’t even know if my reasoning is fully accurate, but it kind of feels right to me. Of course, it could just be that I’m spending too much time on social media, where folks are prone to this sort of thing, given their ability to maintain some level of anonymity. But this sort of thing tends to happen at our work as well, so I don’t think it’s just a social media thing.

Regardless of rationale, the real question for me, the thing that I’ve been mulling over, is which one of those folks am I? Or rather, who do I want to be, at least most of the time? 

The person who wants to help proactively, expecting nothing in return? Or that guy who loves to correct others, because it gives me an ego boost?

Because otherwise, I think I’m better off just scrolling on.