know-it-all

I struggle with when to correct people online.  This has been exacerbated in the last few years by Facebook.  When is the right time and wrong time to correct friends, family, and acquaintances on factual or grammatical errors?

Generally speaking, I don't correct people on politics.  There have been some noteworthy exceptions where I have called someone out on what I thought was a blatant error, but I do not look back on those incidents with pride.  Even then, those incidents have been very few and far between. Like most people I generally bite my tongue and move on when I see political statements that I believe are based on errors.

I correct grammar and spelling even less than I call people out on political issues, but I regularly notice specific errors that annoy me.  The most annoying errors are the ones I find in my own typing.  Some grammatical and spelling errors drive me more crazy than political errors do.

The issue that snags me the most, and far more than politics or grammar, are rumors that have been discredited elsewhere.  As an example, a few months ago a couple of my Facebook friends who do not know each other posted information like what is detailed here to their feeds.  I tried to resist pointing out the mistake, but I knew it would bother me more than most errors since might damage the ability of specific non-profits to do their jobs.

The problem I have is there is no good way to correct someone without coming off like an arrogant know-it-all.  The very act of correcting someone is blatantly telling them that they are wrong and you are right, which causes most people to get defensive and feel like you are attempting to assert your superiority in some way over them.  I don't like it when others correct me, even when I know deep-down that I am in the wrong.  I don't expect anyone else to be different.

I need to learn to better differentiate the situations where correction is called for.