Why People Post Nonsense on Social Media: A Cyberpsychological Perspective

Scroll through your Twitter (X) timeline on any given Tuesday in Accra, and within three minutes you will encounter at least one of the following: a completely fabricated health remedy shared with missionary zeal, a grainy screenshot of a conversation nobody can verify, a tribal insult dressed up as political commentary, or someone declaring with absolute confidence that a sitting minister has resigned — when the minister in question is, at that very moment, sitting comfortably in a meeting in Ministries. Ghana's digital public square is loud, creative, occasionally brilliant, and — if we are being honest — frequently filled with spectacular nonsense. The question that cyberpsychology asks is not simply what people are posting. The far more important question is why.

The Screen Creates a Different Person

The foundational concept here is the online disinhibition effect, first theorised by psychologist John Suler in 2004. His argument was simple but profound: people behave differently online than they do in person. The physical distance between a person and their audience, combined with the absence of immediate facial feedback, lowers psychological inhibition. The result is that things people would never say to someone's face — insults, conspiracy theories, sexual comments, baseless accusations — become surprisingly easy to type and send.

In the Ghanaian context, this plays out with remarkable consistency. The same man who greets his colleague politely at the office on Monday morning may spend Sunday evening on Facebook calling that same colleague's political party "agents of darkness" and tagging his friends to amplify the message. The screen is not just a device. Psychologically, it is a costume.

Anonymity: Ghana's Open Secret

Suler distinguished between two forms of disinhibition: benign (where people share vulnerable emotions or seek help) and toxic (where people abuse, misinform, and harass). Toxic disinhibition is significantly amplified by anonymity. Now, here is an interesting Ghanaian nuance: many people posting nonsense are not actually anonymous. Their real names are on their profiles. Their profile pictures are there. Their employers are listed. And yet the anonymity effect still operates — because the internet creates what psychologists call dissociative imagination: a sense that the online self is a separate character from the offline self. "That is just how I am on social media" has become a genuine excuse, as though social media is a parallel universe with different moral physics. The result is a culture of consequence-free commentary. People make accusations, spread unverified rumours about pastors, politicians, and businesspeople, and share deeply irresponsible medical misinformation — all while their real names sit visible at the top of the post.

The Validation Economy and Why Nonsense Performs

Cyberpsychology also draws heavily on operant conditioning to explain online behaviour. Every like, share, and comment is a small dopamine reward. The brain learns quickly that certain types of content generate more rewards than others. And on social media platforms, outrage, exaggeration, and drama consistently outperform nuance, accuracy, and restraint. This creates what researchers call a validation economy: a system in which the currency is engagement, and engagement is maximised by emotional provocation. A Ghanaian Twitter user who posts a measured analysis of the budget gets twelve likes. The same user posts "Bawumia has destroyed this country" or "Mahama is a thief" and receives four hundred comments before dinner. The algorithm does not care about accuracy. It rewards heat. People are not simply posting nonsense because they are foolish. Many are unconsciously optimising for the reward their brain has been trained to expect.

FOMO and the Pressure to Have a Take

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) in the digital age extends beyond missing parties and holidays. It now includes the anxiety of not having a visible opinion on a trending topic. When something is trending on X Ghana, there is genuine psychological pressure to be part of the conversation — to post, react, share, or comment — even when you have nothing substantive to contribute. This FOMO-driven participation is the engine behind much of the misinformation that spreads during breaking news events in Ghana. A celebrity health scare. An alleged political scandal. A church controversy. The news breaks at 11pm. By midnight, people who know absolutely nothing about the situation are posting confident analyses, fabricated timelines, and invented quotes — because silence, in the attention economy, feels like irrelevance.

The Real Effects: This Is Not Harmless

Let us be clear about something: the psychological drivers are understandable. The consequences are not acceptable. Misinformation posted on Ghanaian social media has led to mob violence. It has destroyed professional reputations. It has spread dangerous health misinformation — particularly during COVID-19. It has stoked ethnic tensions that took years to build and days to inflame. It has driven people to suicide. The nonsense is not contained on the screen. It bleeds into the physical world with devastating regularity. There is also a collective psychological cost: sustained exposure to toxic, dishonest, and inflammatory content desensitises communities, erodes trust in institutions, and normalises a culture in which truth is optional.

Accountability: The Part Nobody Wants to Discuss

Ghana's Electronic Communications Act and the Criminal Offences Act both provide legal frameworks for prosecuting harmful online content, including defamation and publication of false information. The challenge is enforcement — which remains inconsistent and selectively applied. But legal accountability is only one layer. Digital citizenship demands personal accountability. Cyberpsychology does not offer the disinhibition effect as an excuse. It offers it as an explanation — and explanations are the beginning of change, not the end of responsibility. Before you post, ask yourself one honest question: Would I say this, attach my full name to it, and hand it to the person I am talking about? If the answer is no, your finger should stay off the button.

The internet has a long memory. So does your community.