Don’t take advice from random individuals

Here is a list of attention-grabbing headline statements made by some self-proclaimed experts. You’re cutting your onions wrong. You’re cleaning your bathroom wrong. You’re cleaning your house wrong. And you’re eating your pasta wrong. Should we listen to them? A lot of the time, the advice they give today will be completely different from the advice they might give tomorrow. Even for the little insignificant things in life, I feel that some people rely too heavily on other people’s advice.

In the old days, that is before social media, no one could go about giving advice unless someone visited their office and paid a consultation fee. But now such advice comes ten a penny and everyone is an expert on something. They don’t even need credentials from a reputable institution. They just need a following big enough for people to pay attention. I mean, do you really care how you peel and cut onions and is their advice for avoiding tears really so innovative or desperately needed? Do we care whether or not our eyes water as we peel and cut? Personally I don’t mind a little tear here and there when I work with onions because, well they do clear up your blocked up sinuses and clean your eyes. But to have a whole article on the subject seems absurd.

Equally absurd is how to clean your kitchen. Aside from the fact that you really shouldn’t mix up your floor cleaning clothes and substances with your board ones, what else is there? Scrub well? Don’t forget to clean behind the cupboards and under the fridge, maybe work from the top down and put some elbow into it?

What else is there to say? Well, I’m not completely pooh-poohing all advice given by these so-called experts but, as someone with a degree in chemistry, I would stress the dangers of mixing and matching chemicals or using two or more chemical cleaning substances simultaneously. The chemicals might combine to create toxic fumes.

I would also emphasise the importance of working in well ventilated areas when using such chemicals and, if possible, to wear a mask to avoid the risk of inhaling them and to wear gloves to protect your skin. I mean aside from that, surely there’s not much else to say.

I think today’s age of technology is not only useful but also very dangerous. Did you know that, rather than seek health advice from a medical professional, so many people go to Facebook groups and ask ‘what do you think I have?’ Or ‘have you ever had this and how did you cure it?’ And the most alarming thing is that many members of these Facebook groups actually give out advice even though they have no medical training at all. Those who advise people to go and see a doctor instead of relying on social media responses are actually labelled a ‘karen’ or ‘ken’.

Social media influencers have the most following and their advice regarding beauty treatments and nutrition is considered gold. Very likely people will follow their guidelines more than that of a medical professional. The internet is ablaze with dangerously trending cosmetic techniques that can cause cancer and other serious illnesses. People will do anything to change the colour of their hair or their skin.

They will try anything to change the shape of their bodies, not because they know of a safe medical procedure but because they saw something on social media. One trend is a skin freezing technique using liquid nitrogen. Much like farmers use it to brand cattle for identification, this technique actually freezes the skin by holding a contraption against the skin for a few seconds. The idea is to change the colour of the skin and the hair.

The danger is that liquid nitrogen can cause severe skin burns and it’s a matter of seconds too long for the iron to be in contact with the skin to cause second, third and fourth degree burns. Alarmingly, it seems that the question of how effective this technique was in changing the colour of hair was first broached in a thread on Reddit. That’s how dangerous these social media sites are