We live in a time where the two parties cannot agree on seemingly the most obvious of things, up to and including basic facts. This is the result of an unbelievably divisive political climate where we see people on the other side as evil, even though everybody is just trying to strive toward a better country.
The last few years have been a time where people, including myself, have constantly accused young people, specifically on college campuses, of putting feelings over facts. However, according to a new Pew Research study, younger people (18 to 49) are 18 percentage points more likely to be able to correctly separate facts from opinions than their older counterparts (50 and up).
There are a few factors that may have resulted in these findings. Pew says, “This stronger ability to classify statements regardless of their ideological appeal may well be tied to the fact that younger adults — especially Millennials — are less likely to strongly identify with either political party.”
About 44 percent of millennials consider themselves independent compared to only 27 percent of the silent generation and 32 percent of baby boomers. This all suggests that when you are so focused on the success of your party, that may result in the success of the country taking a backseat. When that happens, people will block out facts in order to shield themselves from cognitive dissonance. When facts don’t line up with what you believe so deeply, it becomes easy to dismiss those as opinions, even if they are not.
According to Pew, a couple of other factors may have resulted in these findings: “… the original study found that two other factors have a strong relationship with being able to correctly classify factual and opinion statements: having higher political awareness and more trust in the information from the national news media. Despite the fact that younger adults tend to be less politically aware and trusting of the news media than their elders, they still performed better at this task.”
When you think about it, this makes perfect sense. The more removed you are, the less you have at stake regarding these issues. Because of that, the more clearly you will be able to see the truth, rather than believing a slanted version provided by media on both sides.
The central question to answer in order to create a better country is this: How do we create and advocate for a constituency who can be informed and involved, but still be able to look at the truth with a clear lens? This is a tricky question because we have two groups of people who do one of those things, but not both.
Young people can see the truth as it is, but the downside is we are not particularly engaged as a demographic. On the other hand, older generations are more involved, but they may not be able to see the truth because they are blinded by partisan politics.
Overall, in order to make this the best country we can, we must try to push for a more informed citizenry that can also put politics aside and recognize basic truths.
Jack Elbaum is a high school student at Highland Park High School in Illinois.
