From Print Culture to the Digital Age

Has social media really replaced books as the real driver of knowledge and influence? Last Tuesday, inside danfo I was stuck in traffic on Third Mainland Bridge. The guy beside me was watching a TikTok video on how to start a POS business. I was holding Richard Dawkin’s “the selfish gene”, on page 47 for the third week straight. That moment answered the question for me, but not the way you think. Before I started writing this, I did what I always do, made researches, I checked the actual numbers. DataReportal's 2026 report puts Nigeria at about 109 million people online, with 47.8 million of us actively on social media, averaging 4 hours 9 minutes a day. That’s just Nigeria alone, Imagine the number analysis for the rest of the world. I also pulled up a polytechnic study where 75% of students said they use social media daily, mostly for chatting, and admitted their reading culture is dropping. With those numbers, it is tempting to say yes. “Influence” now moves at the speed of a retweet. For example, EndSARS did not start in a library. It started on Twitter threads, Instagram lives, WhatsApp broadcasts. A 19-year-old can explain crypto, skincare routines, or Japa routes to 1000 strangers before an economics textbook even gets to chapter two. Books feel slow, expensive, and sometimes it feels far from what we actually deal with. But here is the twist I keep noticing. Social media is like a fast food for your mind. While books are like the home cooked meal. I learned about compound interest from a Twitter thread. It was sharp, funny, and I retweeted it. Two weeks later I could not explain it to my niece. Then I read Ope’s money diary, a book my brother gave me when he worked for Cowrywise. Same idea, but after 70 pages I could teach it, argue it, and actually save. That is the pattern. Social media is our bus stop. It is where we hear the gist first, where influence is born because access is low. You do not need ₦7,000 for a book, you need data. But books are the house you enter after. The real knowledge hub. They force you to sit, wrestle, and remember. No algorithm is scrolling for you. And influence? True influence is anchored in depth. We still hold the highest regard for those who build their legacy through long-form thought rather than temporary posts. When a seasoned author shares an insight, people don't just scroll past, they stop and reflect because that authority was earned over years of writing, not minutes of trending. A viral thread is merely the echo of a much deeper voice the book is where the actual power resides. While I’m no paper purist, I’ve found a perfect balance between the two worlds. I spend nearly equal time immersed in physical books and scrolling through social media, and my digital habit is just as intentional, my Saved folder on instagram is overflowing with more mental health insights than my actual bookshelf. Yet, even with all that digital content, the thing that truly stick with me are the book I spent hours reading So has social media replaced books? No. It has replaced the gatekeepers. It has made knowledge louder and faster. It has given market women, farmers, and secondary school students a stage. But the depth, the kind that builds influence that lasts past one viral week, still lives in pages, whether those pages are paper or PDF.

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