You Read One Article and Now You Know More Than Your Doctor?

Global surveys on health misinformation show a striking pattern: roughly seven in ten people worldwide believe at least one debunked medical myth, and belief in that misinformation isn’t concentrated among less-educated people. It cuts across income and education level almost evenly. This isn’t a knowledge problem. It’s a confidence problem.

It looks like a twenty-minute video convincing someone that a treatment their doctor recommended is actually a conspiracy. It looks like self-diagnosing off social media and then rejecting the professional who spent a decade training to know better. It looks like assuming your one personal experience overrides evidence gathered across populations, because your experience is the one you can feel.

Skepticism of institutions is healthy, and institutions have earned some of it. But certainty built on a search engine and a headline is not the same thing as skepticism. It’s just moved your trust to a source with a lot less accountability than the one you replaced.

This is one of several areas like this one. Head back to see the rest.