François Kraus is director of the Politics and News Department at Ifop.
He
publishes a study
for the Jean-Jaurès Foundation and the Reboot Foundation on the misinformation of young people and their relationship to science and the paranormal in the age of social networks.
LE FIGARO. - According to an Ifop study, only 33% of young people think that science brings more good than harm. This is 22 points less than 50 years ago. How to explain this decline?
It is true that the evolution of the proportion of young people believing that
"science brings more good than harm to mankind"
(33% in 2022, compared to 55% in 1972) gives the feeling that Generation Z is more distrustful of the benefits of science than the baby boom generation.
However, in my opinion, we should not draw too alarmist a conclusion about the relationship between science and society.
Firstly, because this evolution does not imply that a majority of young people today express a distrust of principle with regard to science: only 17% of young people believe that its contribution to humanity is more harmful than positive, i.e. a proportion which is certainly on the rise (+11 points between 1972 and 2022) but which remains very much in the minority.
In reality, the mass of young people now have a rather ambivalent view on this subject: 41% (+3 points) of them consider that science brings to man
“as much harm as good”.
Then, because the series of surveys allowing us to follow over almost 50 years the major changes in the public image of science and technology in France (1972–2020) tends to show that the feeling of confidence of the French towards of science may have lost in intensity but it remains high... Indeed, if we analyze the major national surveys conducted on this subject by Frédéric Bon (CNRS) then Daniel Boy (Cevipof), we observe the same trend in the of the French population as a whole: the proportion of French people believing that science brings
"more good than harm"
was halved between 1972 (56%) and 2020 (27%) but those who think the opposite have not become the majority (12% in 2020, +7 points since 1972).
In reality, it is the French with a nuanced position who have become the majority, going from 38% in 1972 to 52% in 2011 to end up at 62% in 2020. Similarly, according to this same series of surveys, the feeling of trust The overall number of French people towards science has certainly eroded in 20 years (84% against 88% in 20021) but above all it has lost in intensity with a halving of the number of French people who have great confidence in science: 11% in 2020, compared to 21% in 2007 and 18% in 2001.
Young people who check micro blogging
social networks
several times a day are more steeped in alternative truths.
Francois Kraus
Finally, the weakening of the feeling of confidence in science that we observe must be inscribed in the particular context of the health crisis from which we are barely emerging.
By brutally confronting the general public with the extent of the uncertainties of researchers and doctors, the Covid-19 crisis has in fact weakened public confidence in a scientific community which may have appeared to them divided and slow to react.
It is obvious that this confidence was already damaged - and not only because of the awareness of the climate crisis... - but its current level must be put into perspective as the impact of Covid has been high.
One in six young people think it is possible that the Earth is flat. One in five believe aliens built the pyramids in Egypt. What is the weight of social networks in this evolution?
It is true that in this Reboot/Jaurès survey, Ifop has attempted to empirically measure the degree of misinformation among young people by evaluating their degree of belief in “alternative truths”, some of which are great classics of antiscience.
And among these classics, the most striking is undoubtedly "flatism" because it has a significant number of followers aged 18 to 24 (16%).
Indeed, while it has been relatively stable since 2017 (18%), it is still five times higher among seniors (3%).
However, a detailed analysis of the profile of flat people shows that flat Earth supporters are naturally over-represented among the young people potentially most exposed to these theses on the Internet, namely heavy users of online video services such as YouTube (21 %),
messaging apps like Telegram (28%) or TikTok as a search engine (29%).
Despite scientific evidence, the counter-speech held for years on the internet therefore always seems to bear fruit among those who get a lot of information on social networks.
We cannot today place the sole responsibility on social networks, even if they are undeniably the new means of access to a whole set of alternative discourses.
Francois Kraus
Admittedly, we do not always find a systematic “social network” effect for all
fake news
.
But we can clearly see, for example, that young people who consult micro blogging
social networks
several times a day are more imbued with alternative truths such as the idea that human beings are not the fruit of a long evolution (37%, compared to 27% on average), mRNA vaccines can kill children (45%, compared to 32% on average) or even the impression that
"one can abort without risk with plant-based products"
(36% , against 25% on average).
Many channels, especially on TNT, regularly broadcast documentaries on UFOs and extraterrestrial bases. Isn't that also a key to understanding?
It is obvious that today we cannot lay sole responsibility on social networks, even if they are undeniably the new means of access to a whole set of alternative discourses.
The most striking case of the impact of television is of course that of the famous Alien Theory which is based on the idea that extraterrestrials would have played a role in the rise of the first civilizations.
However, this ufological theory has been popularized since 2013 in France thanks to a series broadcast on a TNT channel (RMC Découverte) which usurped the codes of the documentary.
As a result, the impact is far from negligible if we judge by the number of young people aged 18 to 24 who subscribe to the
: 19%, i.e. three times more than among seniors (5%).
Is there a link between the decline of science among young people and the rise of beliefs in alternative medicine or even astrology?
Let's say that the greatest permeability of young people to a conspiratorial imagination is found in other scientifically unfounded beliefs such as astrology or occultism.
And to sum up, I would say that there is more of a correlation link than a causal link between, on the one hand, the rejection of a whole set of truths on which there is consensus within the scientific community and, on the other hand, the appetite for a whole set of irrational beliefs – called para-sciences – scientifically unfounded.
The informational disorders of the Internet era undoubtedly accentuate the traditional permeability of the younger generations to these supernatural beliefs.
Francois Kraus
The survey indeed shows a growing porosity of young people to “scientific methods” which are however unfounded.
Thus, 49% of young people believe today that "astrology is a science", against 43% in 1999. And on other occult beliefs, this upward trend is even clearer in view of the number of young people who believe, for example, in spirits (48%, +8 points since 2004) or in reincarnation: 35% in 2022, an increase of 15 points in sixteen years.
And a generational divide is emerging both in belief in the predictions of seers (38%, against 12% of seniors) and belief in spells and witchcraft (36%, against 20% among those over 65).
Similarly, young people are clearly more sensitive than their elders to superstitions of an occult nature.
Overall, 59% believe in at least one of them, compared to 21% of the oldest.
And this generational gap is found on all beliefs, whether it is about the evil eye (44%, against 10%), in ghosts (23%, against 4%), demons (19% among the youngest , against 8%) or even in marabouts (13% of 18-24 year olds, against 4%).
Read also“Science and philosophy were historically linked: let’s reconcile them!”
But then the question arises as to whether it is an age effect – which can fade over time – or a generation effect which is intended to last… As it stands, it It is difficult to answer, but studies conducted for decades on the relationship to science already showed that before the digital age, young people were more sensitive to these beliefs.
In 1986, Daniel Boy also assumed that among young people
"adhesion to these systems of thought has the value of refuge or ideological substitute for age groups whose social integration is not complete (marital status, professional , social)"
.
Our hypothesis would therefore rather be that it is both a generation effect and an age effect: the informational disorders of the Internet era will no doubt accentuate the traditional permeability of the younger generations to these beliefs. supernatural.
In addition, more than 40% of tiktokers consider an influencer to be reliable when he is followed by a lot of people. Have we entered a new era where it is reliability that creates popularity and not the other way around? Does this phenomenon contribute to young people's distrust of science?
This is obviously a risk… The rise of conspiratorial or unfounded beliefs is part of a revolution in information practices where distrust of vertical information from the authorities – political, media, scientific – has been accompanied greater confidence in its horizontal transmission via social networks where everyone is a potential medium.
41% of young people who use TikTok as a search engine adhere to the statement that an influencer who has a large number of followers tends to be a reliable source.
Francois Kraus
While the TikTok application is used by many young people as a search engine in its own right, influencers represent a privileged channel for circulating information, whether true or false.
An alarming figure, 41% of young people who use TikTok as a search engine adhere to the statement that an influencer who has a large number of followers tends to be a reliable source.
This can be seen as a notoriety effect: a person's word is not questioned or questioned because it is followed by many users of the social network.
Thus, notoriety is enough to put oneself in the position of knowing, without shocking many young people.
And these are the most modest young people (workers at 52%,
the poorest at 44%) who take this criterion the most into account when judging the credibility of influencers and content creators.
All this is ultimately very symptomatic of a leveling of knowledge and expertise, this figure revealing in my eyes the lack of critical reasoning of part of the youth with regard to "popular influencers".
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