One uncomfortable truth Ghana must confront is that cheap internet access alone does not automatically produce a skilled or productive society.

For many young people, data consumption is heavily tilted toward social media addiction, betting, gossip, fraud, vanity content and endless entertainment. Hours are spent scrolling, arguing, watching lifestyles they cannot afford, or chasing instant money schemes, while the same internet contains free opportunities to learn coding, welding, graphic design, agriculture, plumbing, accounting, artificial intelligence, languages and countless vocational skills.

This is not entirely the fault of the youth. Society itself increasingly celebrates visibility over usefulness. A young person who spends hours teaching a trade online is often less admired than one displaying luxury, attention or questionable “success” on social media.

This is not to suggest that life must be stripped of entertainment or leisure. Entertainment is normal and necessary. However, available indicators and usage patterns strongly suggest that a significant portion of our internet consumption is hardly centred on productivity, skills acquisition, technical learning or economic advancement.

We must therefore stop discussing internet access only from the perspective of affordability and start discussing purpose, orientation and productivity.

The same smartphone can become:

• a classroom,
• a design studio,
• a marketing office,
• a technical school,
• or a global shopfront.

But for too many, it is becoming little more than a betting terminal, gossip machine or fraudulent device.

Parents, schools, religious institutions, telecom companies and government must all play a role in promoting productive digital habits. We need stronger vocational discovery campaigns online, local language educational content, apprenticeship matching platforms and practical digital literacy beyond merely teaching people how to open social media accounts.

Otherwise, cheap data may simply produce cheap thinking and expensive national consequences while benefiting mainly the telecom companies.