Maybe most people today do not actually want to understand something, even if they think they want to. Because that would require more time, effort, self-direction, and critical thinking than they can invest in the process.

They want whatever peice of info that makes sense to them and helps them sound informed to their peers. As long as the info is within the character limit of a tweet or the headline of an article, which is also the limit of their attention span (by design).