With a Grain of Salt
Social media content should be taken with a grain of salt. Along with helpful information, we find untruths and half-truths.
To take with a grain of salt (or a pinch of salt) means with hesitation.
We verify rather than accept without reservation. Especially if we don’t know the information source. Such caution applies to more than social media.
- Many sources remain reliable and honest.
- Others, not worth their salt, share unreliable and dishonest material.
Unreliable sources often make a bad situation worse.
They harm instead of help. Although we want to believe information, we often find:
- Exaggeration
- Deliberate deceit
- Unintended untruth
According to The Free Dictionary, with a grain of salt “is a translation of the Latin cum grano salis.”
Pliny used it to describe “Pompey’s discovery of an antidote for poison (to be taken with a grain of salt).”
Let’s always speak truth and guide others to do the same.
Season rather than harm. Preserve rather than destroy.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone” (Colossians 4:6 NIV).
Thanks to Joyce McCullough for the suggestion.
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