I don’t spend much time on Facebook these days. I mostly check in with a couple of friends from Australia every fortnight, but yesterday, I happened to log in, and my page was loading slowly. In my impatience, I (maybe not so accidentally) clicked to load the newsfeed. Well, that turned out to be an interesting experience!

The first post that popped up was from a genuinely lovely lady I know through a few social interactions. She’s incredibly intelligent, with a beautiful heart, and I always enjoy our conversations. But this post—oh, it really caught my attention. It seemed like another one of those “this equals that” oversimplifications that have become all too common on social media, and frankly, in society in general.

As you may know, my work often revolves around natural health and spirituality, and this post was in line with that theme. In a nutshell, it claimed that sunscreen is the cause of melanoma. Now, that’s a dangerously misleading oversimplification! Could sunscreen be a contributing factor? Possibly. But to say it’s the sole cause is far from the truth.

This meme is a classic example of the "this equals that" mentality: "Wearing sunscreen causes melanoma." "Wearing sunglasses causes skin cancer." "The sun causes skin cancer." If only it were that simple! The reality is far more complex. It’s not just about sunscreen or the sun; it’s about our nutritional status, the acidity of our bodies, the emotional traumas we carry (yes, holding on to negative thought patterns can absolutely affect our health), and the toxicity of our environment. And even within those broad categories, there’s so much more to explore.

So when did we start reducing everything to a “this equals that” society? It seems we’ve lost sight of the bigger picture.