Society is not merely a gathering of individuals; it is a network of relationships among them. These relationships are sustained, interpreted, and made meaningful through narratives in each epoch of society. The stories people in society narrate and the way it tells them shape how people understand one another and their place in the world. The nature of a society, therefore, is reflected in its narratives. In traditional societies, folk tales served more than just entertainment; they were significant tools for understanding the world. These narratives explained situations of human life such as suffering and fortune, fear and courage, morality and fate. In times when scientific knowledge was limited, folk tales provided coherence and helped people live with certainty. Their authority is not legitimised by evidence but by repetition, shared memory, collective beliefs and moral familiarity. Listening to a folk tale was also to belong to a community and to share a common understanding of life.
The rise of modern science creates a drastic change in the traditional narrative order of folk tales. Scientific narratives based on rational inquiry, empirical verification, and systematic observation gradually replaced folk tales as legitimate explanations of reality. Knowledge was no longer inherited through memory; instead, it was created through scientific methodological approaches. Facts, data, and research-based inquiry have become essential to studying both natural and social phenomena. Consequently Universities produce experts in diverse disciplines, such as philosophers and scientists, who have replaced elders and storytellers as custodians of truth. This transition has led to a drastic change in human cognition. Scientific explanations made it possible to explain the phenomenon of disease, the natural environment resulted build infrastructure, and challenged superstition.
The nature of scientific explanation is often slow, cautious, and methodological, yet also authoritative. Modern societies trusted that reality could be understood and improved through scientific inquiry. Progress was imagined as cumulative, and truth as something approached over time.
Yet scientific narratives carried a quiet limitation. They explained how society works, but not always how it feels to live in it. They expected patience, attention, and trust in distant institutions. Meaning became technical, abstract, and often delayed. Thinkers of earlier centuries were willing to devote entire books to a single idea. For instance Adam Smith wrote the book “The Wealth of Nations” to elaborate how individual self-interest could contribute to collective prosperity. Such modes of explanation were sustainable and more functional for relatively stable and slow societies. These scientific explanations become fragile in an era marked by rapid change, inequality, and everyday uncertainty. It is observed that many people start to believe people are lacking trust in scientific facts, after seeing the increasing popularity of non-scientific explanations compared to scientific explanations. The fact is that contemporary society has not abandoned science. They continued to rely on it for medicine, technology, governance, and daily functioning. Hospitals, satellites, smartphones, and infrastructure still depend on scientific expertise.
What has eroded instead is not belief in facts, but the patience to listen to extended explanation.
This transformation is most visible in contemporary digital culture. The dominance of short videos, reels, viral clips, and emotionally charged content is often interpreted as evidence of a “post-truth” world. But this diagnosis misses the deeper shift. People today are not necessarily hostile to facts or research. They are increasingly resistant to slow meaning and extended explanation.
Scientific explanation is slow by design. It is complex, provisional, and cautious. Digital platforms, by contrast, reward speed, emotional stimulation, and instant satisfaction. In this environment, reel tales have emerged as a powerful alternative form of meaning-making. They do not argue; they present. They do not contextualise; they compress. They do not persuade over time; they demand immediate recognition. In this regard, to some extend reel tales function much like folk tales. They try to provide moral clarity, emotional stimulation, and a sense of shared understanding. However, unlike traditional folk narratives, they are not rooted in collective memory or ethical continuity. They are shaped by algorithms, amplified through repetition, and detached from responsibility. What matters is not whether a narrative is accurate, but whether it feels convincing within seconds and, most importantly, provides an understanding of phenomena within seconds.
A personal experience is elevated into a universal truth. A dramatic image replaces contextual explanation. Repetition becomes credibility. In reel culture, something feels true long before it is verified. This does not signal the collapse of truth. It signals the emergence of a post-explanation society. In such a society, facts continue to exist and are used instrumentally. People trust science when they need medical treatment, technology, or infrastructure. But in public life, explanation has lost its cultural authority. Research exists, but rarely persuades. Expertise survives, but no longer commands the same level of patience. Meaning is expected instantly, not gradually.
People are not rejecting facts; they are rejecting the time, effort, and uncertainty that explanation demands. The consequences are serious. Complex social problems are reduced to individual narratives. Structural inequalities are personalised. Policy debates are replaced by emotional performances. Democratic life weakens as disagreement loses a shared explanatory ground and turns into competing impressions rather than reasoned arguments. This moment calls for careful reflection.
The solution does not lie in romanticising folk tales, dismissing scientific knowledge, or demonising digital culture. The real challenge is to restore the cultural value of explanation itself, not as a privilege for the elite or an academic exercise, but as a shared civic practice. Scientific narratives need to be communicated both accurately and with moral clarity, as well as with a high degree of human resonance. If not, then the fact that there is a lack of human connection in the way that facts are being communicated will give rise to an increase in the propagation and perpetuation of misleading, emotionally compelling narratives. The rise of reel tales does not mark the failure of science. It marks a transformation in how societies seek understanding. We have not entered a post-truth world. We have entered a post-explanation society, one in which explanation has become too slow for a world that no longer knows how to wait.
The Author is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Chandigarh University, Punjab India.
