There was a time when the media curated what we consumed. Information was filtered, structured, and purposefully delivered. Mondays were for serious discussions,business, economy, career. Tuesdays followed suit, and by Wednesday, there was a breather with family and education. Thursdays explored hospitality and real estate, while Friday ushered in entertainment. Saturdays brought deep think pieces, and Sundays offered something for everyone. A Sunday paper was a family affair, Dad immersed in Newswatch and Mom flipping through Lifestyle and Hints, kids eagerly scanning Ebony and Essence, their minds soaking in words like high fashion. Everything had its place. There was a sense of order.
Then, things fell apart.
Today, on a Monday morning, discussions might revolve around porn and sex toys. By Tuesday, social media is ablaze with gist lover” a euphemism for gossip and scandal, the new opium of the masses. By Wednesday, the discourse has moved on to a TikTok trend,usually some self-proclaimed guru spewing pseudo-science, a charlatan with a microphone and a following. Gym instructors have become nutritionists. Random influencers dictate health and wellness, and real scientists,once the gatekeepers of knowledge,have prostituted themselves to the highest bidder, endorsing pesticides, excess sugar, and unhealthy fats with scientific jargon meant to confuse rather than inform.
COVID-19, by warped consensus, is now dismissed as history’s cruelest prank. The jab, once the supposed savior, is today’s regret. Trust in expertise has withered, paving the way for an era of pseudo-science and modern-day alchemy. And because structured gatekeeping is now a relic of the past, the world has gone bonkers.
Social media has become an unchecked wasteland. TikTok is a chaotic marketplace where unhinged individuals spew unfiltered nonsense. X (formerly Twitter) has devolved into a cesspit of abuse, where thoughtful discourse is drowned in vitriol. Instagram thrives on illusions, filtered perfection masking hollow lives. Everywhere, misinformation spreads like wildfire, and it is alarming how easily people take the bait. A well-designed post, a doctored screenshot, and a fabricated headline are all it takes. A recent example? The viral story of an American basketball player supposedly paying 18 years’ worth of child support upfront. A complete lie. Yet, it was swiftly hijacked by agenda-pushing propagandists eager to fuel gender wars, indifferent to truth.
More information should mean a more informed society, but the paradox is clear. Access to unlimited knowledge has not made people wiser. It has, instead, bred confusion. Brilliant minds once capable of critical thought are now easy prey for conspiracy theories, fake news, and bizarre beliefs. Flat-Earth theories flourish. People reject historical facts because some YouTuber with slick editing says otherwise. Without safety controls, we risk raising a generation of deeply misinformed, intellectually lazy individuals.
Once upon a time, truth was clear-cut. Now, every truth has an opposing “truth.” Water is essential; water is dangerous. Meat is poison; meat is superfood. White meat was superior, now it’s the enemy. Sugar was a poison, then it wasn’t. Bread was a staple, now it’s the devil. Watch two YouTube videos on the same topic, and you’ll be left utterly confused, questioning reality itself.
I feel sorry for us. And although this wave of misinformation is global, it hits differently in developing nations. Here in Africa, knowledge is not just a tool,it is survival. When you meet a European technician, he explains the theory before touching a tool. Here, a contractor decides to build a winding road on flat land because a tipsy foreigner once said straight roads make drivers fall asleep. Engineering? Science? Logic? Who cares? A foreigner said it, so it must be true.
We are drowning in garbage. The “teas” are exhausting. We have become slaves to distraction. Garbage In, Garbage Out (GIGO). Or maybe, just maybe, this is the inevitable result of unchecked digital chaos.
And yet, amid this chaos, one thing is certain, someone, somewhere, is controlling the narrative. Someone is watching, keenly observing how we move, how we react, how easily we are led. We are on a leash, and most don’t even know it.
Look no further than the food industry. Yesterday, fatty meat was dangerous. Today, it’s the holy grail. Beans, once a trusted protein source, are suddenly demonized as carbs. The same nutritionists who once warned against excessive fats now sell tallow as the elixir of life. One day, eggs will kill you. The next, you need 15 a day. It’s no wonder people are lost.
One of the greatest casualties of this information free-for-all is the decline of intellectual rigor. Even in journalism, the consequences are stark. A podcaster secures an exclusive interview with Chimamanda Adichie but arrives woefully unprepared, having never read her books. The questions are shallow, the conversation meaningless. Journalism, once the pillar of informed discourse, is now an echo chamber of mediocrity.
I say this not as a bitter person but as an observer mourning the erosion of standards. The digital age has democratized information, but at a grave cost. The filters that once ensured quality and credibility are gone.
In our rush to dismantle traditional gatekeeping, we’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater. And now, we wade through an ocean of misinformation, desperately trying to distinguish experts from frauds, truth from opinion, knowledge from nonsense.
But all hope is not lost. We must reclaim our ability to think critically. We must fact-check, question, and scrutinize. We must demand accountability from those who claim expertise. Because in a world drowning in noise, clarity is the only power left.
Stephanie Shaakaa
University of Agriculture Makurdi,
Benue State.
