As a Manchester United fan, I witness clips go viral daily, with instant opinions formed. Before you know it, half of the fanbase is calling for a player’s head based on a single post. I’ve done it myself, if I’m being honest.
But what drives this behaviour? Why do we, as reasonably intelligent fans, instantly accept and react to social media content without questioning it, even when we could easily verify it first?
This article will explore the psychology behind our digital habits, and honestly, it should make all of us think twice about how we consume and share content about our beloved club.
Whether you’re currently backing or criticising our squad, or even if football isn’t your thing, some of these insights might genuinely surprise you. I’ll also examine a recent, albeit bizarre, example: the social media outrage over Ruben Amorim using a tactics board during our League Cup match against Grimsby.
The incident, if you can even call it that, demonstrates how normal professional behaviour can be twisted into controversy when context gets stripped away. People are looking for reasons to criticise.
Despite having the world’s knowledge literally in our pockets, we’re arguably more misinformed than ever. People routinely accept social media content without question, despite carrying smartphones that could verify almost anything in seconds.
This isn’t just about politics or conspiracy theories; it shows up everywhere. Football fans suddenly love or hate players based on viral clips. We form strong opinions about products, people, and events we’ve never personally experienced.
The real question isn’t whether this happens – obviously it does – but why our brains seem so eager to skip the fact-checking tools we carry everywhere.
The fast brain takes control
Psychologist Daniel Kahneman altered our understanding of human decision-making with distinct thinking systems.
System one operates fast, instinctively, and emotionally. The second system works more slowly, more carefully, and more logically. When we scroll social media, the first system completely dominates. It’s automatic and intuitive, requiring virtually no effort. This thinking mode lets us make quick decisions based on patterns and past experiences.
The problem? System one wasn’t built for today’s information landscape. It helped our ancestors make split-second survival decisions. It did not evaluate complex claims about vaccine effectiveness or whether that viral football clip actually shows what the caption claims.
Think about what happens when a Manchester United fan sees a brief Twitter clip of their midfielder apparently not tracking back defensively. Within seconds, the first system has processed the image, matched it against existing beliefs or concerns about the player, and formed a judgement. The fan might immediately tweet their frustration, share the clip, or use it as ammunition in arguments with mates.
System two – the slower, more analytical part that might ask “Is this clip missing context?” or “What happened before and after this moment?” – often never kicks in at all.
This happens because our second dynamic is deliberate and conscious, requiring intentional mental effort. In our rapidly evolving digital world, we rarely give ourselves the time or space for that deliberate effort.
We only hear what we want to hear
Even when we engage analytical thinking, we hit confirmation bias – our tendency to favour information that confirms what we already believe. Our brains actively seek out information that confirms our sense of rightness.
Recent research shows how powerfully this bias shapes our interaction with digital information. When encountering “fake news,” we tend to believe information that aligns with what we want to be true, and are less likely to verify information that confirms our existing beliefs.
In sports, this plays out predictably. A fan who already dislikes a particular player will eagerly share negative stories about them, often without verifying their accuracy. Meanwhile, positive stories about the same player might get dismissed, fact-checked more rigorously, or simply ignored. The opposite happens for beloved players – their mistakes are rationalised, while their successes are amplified and shared.
This creates “motivated reasoning” – we use our intellectual abilities not to find truth, but to justify existing beliefs. The fan sharing that out-of-context midfielder clip genuinely believes they’re revealing something true about a player they already suspected was problematic.
How social media makes everything worse
Social media platforms have accidentally created perfect conditions for these psychological biases. Platform design, emphasising engagement, quick interactions, and algorithmic content delivery, encourages exactly the kind of fast, emotional thinking that bypasses careful analysis.
When algorithms show us content similar to what we’ve previously engaged with, they create “echo chambers” where existing beliefs get constantly reinforced. For football fans, this means that harmful content about disliked players is algorithmically promoted, creating feedback loops that reinforce initial judgments.
Social media’s speed compounds the problem. Traditional media, despite its flaws, typically involves some editorial process —however brief—between the occurrence of an event and its publication. Social media collapses this gap to zero. A clip can be recorded, edited, captioned, and shared with millions within minutes, often before anyone has had time to provide context or verify accuracy.
This has created a toxic phenomenon: large accounts, some masquerading as fan pages, prioritising engagement over accuracy. These accounts understand that outrage generates clicks, deliberately sharing misleading content because it triggers emotional responses from genuine fans.
Their massive reach means that manufactured drama often becomes accepted as truth, reaching more people than legitimate news and creating division among supporters who are being manipulated for someone else’s profit.
The recent Ruben Amorim incident serves as a perfect demonstration of this. After United’s Carabao Cup exit to Grimsby Town, an image of Amorim using a tactics board went viral, with many treating it as problematic.
Tim Sherwood – whose longest stint as a manager is seven months – used this to criticise Amorim, despite tactics boards being completely standard practice across all football levels.
Managers routinely use visual aids to communicate tactical instructions; it’s basic coaching methodology. Yet because United were struggling against lower-league opposition, a standard coaching tool became fodder for ridicule, showing exactly how context gets stripped away and professional behaviour gets weaponised for engagement.
Why we don’t fact fact-check
Given that we carry powerful fact-checking tools in our pockets, why don’t we use them? The answer lies in several psychological and practical factors.
First, fact-checking requires what psychologists call “cognitive load” – mental effort and attention. After a long day at work, scrolling through social media often represents mental downtime, not mental work. Engaging system two thinking to verify every claim we encounter would transform leisure time into labour.
Second, much of what we encounter on social media doesn’t seem to require fact-checking. A short video clip, for instance, appears to be direct evidence. If we can see the midfielder failing to track back, what’s there to verify? The issue, of course, is that clips can be taken out of context, edited misleadingly, or represent isolated incidents rather than patterns. But system one thinking doesn’t naturally account for these possibilities.
Third, there’s often an emotional reward in sharing without verification. That clip that “proves” the midfielder is lazy provides immediate satisfaction to fans who never rated him. Pausing to fact-check might not only kill the emotional high but could potentially undermine a belief the fan wants to maintain.
Too much information, too little truth
Counterintuitively, having access to unlimited information may actually make us more susceptible to misinformation, not less. When data was scarce, people had to be more selective about what they believed. Now, with millions of sources available, we can almost always find something that supports whatever we want to believe.
A Manchester United fan convinced that a player is lazy or overrated can find statistics, video clips, expert opinions, and fan commentary supporting this view, regardless of whether it’s accurate. The abundance of information means confirmation bias can be satisfied more easily than ever.
Additionally, the sheer volume of information creates what researchers refer to as “information overload.” When faced with too many choices or overwhelming data, people often resort to mental shortcuts and instinctive judgments rather than careful analysis. The fan confronted with dozens of articles, statistics, and video clips about a player might simply go with whatever “feels” right rather than working through the evidence systematically.
The social and emotional dimension
Humans are social creatures; much of what we believe is shaped by our social groups. Social media amplifies this by making approval immediate through likes, shares, and comments.
When fans share clips, they’re participating in the formation of a group identity. The validation received can be more rewarding than being factually correct. Taking time to fact-check might mean missing the social moment entirely.
This creates “cascade effects” – information spreads not because it’s true, but because it’s socially advantageous to share.
Emotional content is more likely to be shared regardless of accuracy. Sports provide a particularly potent emotional environment where team loyalty and rivalries generate intense feelings that cloud judgement. When content triggers strong emotions, the response often overwhelms any impulse to verify information.
Breaking the cycle
Understanding why we take things at face value is the first step toward change. Research suggests awareness of cognitive biases can reduce their influence.
Practical strategies help: Taking a brief pause before sharing and asking, “Do I know this is true?” can engage analytical thinking. Seeking diverse sources, especially those challenging existing beliefs, counteracts confirmation bias. Developing “cognitive empathy” -understanding how others might interpret information differently—provides perspective on our own biases.
For football supporters: “Would I be as quick to share this about my favourite player?” or “Am I sharing this because it’s newsworthy or because it confirms what I already believe?”
The bigger picture
Taking information at face value isn’t a personal failing – it’s natural for brains working in an information environment they weren’t designed for. Our cognitive systems evolved for direct experience or trusted community members, not algorithmic feeds optimised for engagement.
The fan sharing that questionable midfielder clip isn’t necessarily malicious – they’re being human in a system designed to exploit human psychology.
Our challenge is adapting ancient cognitive hardware to modern information software. This requires individual awareness and collective efforts in creating information systems that promote accuracy over engagement, reflection over reaction, and nuance over simplification.
Until then, the next time you see something on social media that perfectly confirms what you already believe, it might be worth taking a moment to ask: “Is this too good to be true?” Your system two brain will thank you for the exercise.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments or across our social channels.
If you would like to speak with Reza about any of the content of this article, you can contact him on Twitter or at utdarts.com.
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