Opinion Express View on social media and society: Who’s an expert, who isn’t

In a breakout scene in the series, Fleabag, the lead character confesses, “I want someone to tell me what to eat. What to like. What to hate. What to rage about. What to listen to… What to joke about. What not to joke about. I want someone to tell me what to believe in. Who to vote for and who to love and how to tell them. I just think I want someone to tell me how to live my life.” It is curious that Fleabag did not know where to look for an expert. After all, on social media, there’s no escaping bountiful advice on everything from bringing up babies to making meaningful connections, from investments to health and beauty solutions. Or, perhaps, her problem was more existential: In this age of DIY fixes, where everyone is an expert and no one is quite one, whom does one really trust?

The proliferation of wellness mentors, herbalists, deep-breathing coaches and policy gurus showcases the expertise crisis. If the packaging is self-assured, glib and available OTC, it’s easier to accept it at face value than seek out the real experts — the doctors and the economists, the psychologists and the data scientists, people who have had to undergo rigorous training to earn their expertise. Actor Samantha Ruth Prabhu recently got called out on X by a practising hepatologist for promoting, among other things, untested herbal remedies for a liver detox on her podcast with a “wellness expert and performance nutritionist”.

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Prabhu’s interest in health and medicine is understandable, she was diagnosed with the auto-immune disease myositis in 2022. But her choice of practitioner may show the allure of authoritative misinformation. If there’s a moral here, it is to hang on to one’s scepticism for what it’s worth, even when a persuasive authority is telling one what to think and how to live. There are no certainties in life. That’s one of the first things that a “real” expert would say, too.