Social Media and Neo-Gnosticism
I’ve been familiar with Jonathan Haidt for the last couple of years. I subscribe to his Substack, After Babel, and have read his most recent book, Anxious Generation. Today, I want to share what I’ve learned from this week’s articles and create an idea that is not new.
I want to understand people who ‘find themselves’ on social media. The former US Surgeon General says, “Social media can provide benefits for some youth by providing positive community and connection with others who share identities, abilities, and interests. It can provide access to important information and create a space for self-expression.” [1] At the same time, Social Media is algorithmically driven to engage and enrage. In 2009, Twitter added an algorithmic timeline to drive engagement, and Facebook followed soon after. Haidt points out that outrage is a feature; he says, “Citizens are now more connected to one another, on platforms that have been designed to make outrage contagious.” [2] This engage and enrage creates a hook – an emotional connection and reason to return to the site.
How do we make sense that people have found community and connection in these spaces when social media has often been enraging? Let me show how Social Media, which enables community and connection while fostering frequently hostile and outraging engagement, connects with an ancient idea: Gnosticism.
Gnosticism, from the Greek word for knowledge, was an early Christian set of heresies. The common belief of Gnostic schools is that secret knowledge is revealed to special people, leading to salvation. Gnostic schools all held their own secret knowledge that revealed the true and hidden nature of God and people.
Let me draw a connection between Gnosticism and the influence of Social Media on self-discovery – the self-revelation of who we are as people.
When done well, Haidt says, relationships are embodied, synchronous, entail one-to-one or one-to-several communications, and have a high bar for entry and exit.[3] Online relationships lack these qualities. Smyth, drawing on Haidt, says, “It is arguable that social media ‘communities’ aren’t communities.” (emphasis original)[4]
When people doom-scroll, it changes their soul. When they bring their identity questions to social media, the algorithm influences who they become. Social media companies hope to hook you and bring you back. They hope to change you so that you come back. Haidt makes a similar point: “During that crucial sensitive period for cultural learning, from roughly ages 9 through 15, we should be especially thoughtful about who is socializing our children for adulthood.” [5]
We see young people in particular (and our crazy uncles) influenced toward extremism on social media in a gnostic way. Impressionable people, through their research on social media, uncover and have hidden knowledge revealed to them, showing the ‘true’ nature of people and themselves.
Social Media companies, their communities, and influencers are poised to provide the necessary secret knowledge for a Neo-Gnostic revelation. However, confusion happens when impressionable people mistake algorithmic influence for self-discovery. They struggle to live in a community that lives in reality apart from the revelation. The community is fractured. Consider the role of the deep state in the last three elections – or every family holiday since. Or, read this article that tells the story of a girl using self-harm for belonging on Social Media (also from After Babel).
I think there’s hope. In my American context, how can we live with our neighbors and family who have become ‘woke’ (woke itself being Neo-Gnostic—awakening to the truth) or alt-right MAGA (awakening to the deep state)? Let me answer this with the Tower of Babel.
On the story of the Tower of Babel, Haidt says, “Babel is not a story about tribalism. It’s a story about the fragmentation of everything.” [6] I think Haidt misses the big picture of the Babel story. While the story moves through fragmentation – God works with purpose.
Haidt doesn’t say why God scattered the people. There’s an important theological point that God is continuing – God wants his people spread worldwide. The first commandment given to people in Genesis 1:28 is to “be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth…” God wanted his people to leave the garden. We, as humanity, were always meant to take the goodness that God started and spread it over the world. God repeats that command to Noah in Gen 9:1, “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth.” That’s the only part of the original command that God repeats – the rest changes slightly. The command to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth doesn’t change.
The very next story after Noah’s genealogy is the Tower of Babel. In Genesis 11:2, the people are beginning to migrate, but they stop and come together in one place, breaking God’s command to fill the earth. Therefore, God spreads them out and fulfills his purpose of filling the earth. Jesus also picks up this motif in Matthew 28:18-20, the great commission, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” Jesus continues God’s desire for his people to fill the earth.
Haidt says Babel and our world have experienced fragmentation. Gnostically, people find authority in secret knowledge. Neo-gnostically, we find it in ourselves, or algorithmically, we are convinced we have found it in ourselves. Jesus says all authority belongs to him. The answer to fragmentation is embodied relationships. Jesus being embodied himself invites us into embodied relationships. In these relationships, people come to know who God has created them to be as they fill the earth with his goodness. God spreads us out to live embodied lives. In embodied relationships, we develop communities and soften the hardest parts of ourselves.
[1] Nicholas Smyth, “Smash The Technopoly!,” March 9, 2023, https://www.afterbabel.com/p/smash-the-technopoly?r=2cgdda&utm_medium=email.
[2] Jonathan Haidt and Tobias Rose-Stockwell, “The Dark Psychology of Social Networks,” The Atlantic, November 12, 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/12/social-media-democracy/600763/.
[3] Jonathan Haidt, “End the Phone-Based Childhood Now,” The Atlantic, March 13, 2024, https://web.archive.org/web/20241001130745/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/03/teen-childhood-smartphone-use-mental-health-effects/677722/.
[4] Smyth, “Smash The Technopoly!”
[5] Haidt, “End the Phone-Based Childhood Now.”
[6] Jonathan Haidt, “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid – The Atlantic,” April 11, 2022, https://web.archive.org/web/20250129045916/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/.
About the Author
Robert Radcliff
Hi! I'm Robert, and I'm seeking to understand who God is calling me to be in my community while helping others do the same. I enjoy reading, training for triathlons, and using exclamation points!6 responses to “Social Media and Neo-Gnosticism”
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Robert –
Thanks for a great and thought-provoking post! It seems evident that the epistles of John are written in direct response to (or confrontation of!) the way of gnosticism that was fracturing the early church. The Spirit (who repudiates Babel and enlivenes unity in diversity beginning in Acts 2) and love (costly and truth-infused) appear to be John’s solutions to gnositicism then, and I would venture are much essential in the answer now. What have been the most effective ways you’ve seen pastors and other leaders hold space for love and Holy Spirit in the turbulence of fractious, neo-gnostic kinds of environments?
Jeremiah, I think the most effective way I’ve seen fractions, identity sharing questions handled is through honesty and returning to basics.
Solzhenitsyn said, the line of good and evil does not pass been us and them, but straight through every human heart.
We are all capable of deep evil and being led astray. The fact that my neighbor has does not mean I’m better. That could be me led astray. Chesterton said something like the Bible talks about loving my neighbor and my enemies together, because they’re often the same person.
Then a community that is grounded in recognizing our propensity to sin and God’s grace, I think allows us to receive feedback and admit when we’re wrong.
*From my phone
Robert, I love that you highlighted the value of embodiment being manifest in God’s own embodiment in Christ. When God chose to show the world how much he loved it, he chose the modalities of embodiment, vulnerability, self-sacrifice, and forgiveness. That has to be a powerful pointer for our study in leadership!
Joff, thanks & amen. If Jesus, being fully human, embodies the traits of humility, vulnerability, and self-sacrifice, then that tells us something about what it means to be fully human. In his book Strong and Weak, Andy Crouch talks about how much effort we put into limiting the traits seen as weak. But, we end up living lives that are less than we ought.
Robert, I think the neo-gnostic term fits well for your article, particularly because this topic and context are disembodied. I get that part. Can you help me understand a bit more about what you are parsing out with the self-discovery piece?
You mentioned finding secret knowledge around identity through algorithms. Can you explain a bit more?
Christian, thanks for the question! I think that part of the Western idea that if I can only discover who I am inside me, then I’ll be happy is a neo-gnostic idea. The secret knowledge was hidden in me all along. We bring our questions of identity to our friends groups and social media. I’m thinking about my friends from college who discovered themselves on Tumblr for girls or Reddit for guys. In hindsight, I’m wondering how much they found out who they were and how much they were being influenced in a direction by their algorithm. Like most things, it’s probably a bit of both.