If you want the answer to a perplexing problem in your life look no further than social media. What can go wrong, right? By crowd sourcing your issue and using a forum you should be able to get some actionable intelligence to solve your issue in no time. Mission accomplished!

Stop right there. There are a number of flaws with that thinking.

First, are the people in the forum actually trying to help other fix a problem or get the most up votes in the community?

Is the individual trying to promote their website or share their story for the benefit of others?

Do you feel better about yourself and the question you had after spending time interacting with the community or do you feel worse?

In addition, there are those individuals who are just trying to generate click-bait. These individuals (or bots) will say something along the lines of the question but then they will drop a link to the full answer. On the other end, it could be malware or just something totally unrelated that has a commercial aspect to it.

Then there are the most toxic fillers which are the trolls. These forum denizens just insult people for even asking the question or they just insult everyone. Sometimes these posters are bots used by the site to continue the conversation and garner higher engagement, while other times these are just people who feel like insulting others from the comfort and safety of the other side of a computer screen. Furthermore, some of these commentators are simply there to trigger people. It could be for financial gain or because there is some other agenda, but instead of providing clarity these individuals speak to our prejudices, fears, insecurities in order to get us to proceed with some action beneficial to them.

This is not to say that social media cannot provide answers that are relevant and exceptionally helpful. There are plenty of instances where users have helped others with DIY, computer repair, home remedies, quality of life issues, depression, anxiety or even thoughts of suicide. It is just that sometimes we are so trusting because we have been indoctrinated with the belief that by searching we can get the answer to our problem in less than a second. However, as we are beginning to find out, the answer we get back may just be the most optimized answer or the one that gets the most user reaction. Evaluate your sources and do your due diligence prior to putting faith in the recommendation that just some random podcast or blogger puts forth. Read it, evaluate it, and then make a determination if it is credible.

Be careful out there.