The disturbing beliefs of the TikTok generation

It’s a spine-chilling portrait of youth. More and more young people aged 18 to 24 do not trust science and are open to scientific untruths and occult beliefs, according to an Ifop survey for the Reboot Foundation and the Jean-Jaurès Foundation , released Thursday.

“Followers of conspiracy theses, and more generally of irrational beliefs, are particularly numerous among those who use social networks a lot and in particular TikTok, which has become the favorite social network of young French people”, note the authors of the survey. Thus, only one young person in three (33%) today believes that “science brings more good to mankind than harm”, whereas they were more than one in two who thought so fifty years ago. years. They are 17% to consider that it is harmful for humanity, against 6% in 1972.

Even more surprisingly, 16% of them are convinced that the Earth is flat, against 3% among seniors (3%). One in five young people subscribe to the idea that “the Egyptian pyramids were built by extraterrestrials”, the same goes for those who believe that “Americans have never been to the moon”. A proportion up five points in five years.

The authors point out that “in a post-Covid information fog conducive to conspiracy”, many young people adhere to infox on hydroxychloroquine (25%) and messenger RNA vaccines (32%). A quarter of them (25%) even believe that you can have an abortion with plants.

Finally, at a time when “social networks like TikTok are accused of promoting conspiracy theories”, a quarter of young people think that “the assault on the Capitol was staged to accuse supporters of Donald Trump”.

This greater permeability of young people to a conspiratorial imagination is found in other scientifically unfounded beliefs, such as astrology – considered a science by 49% of respondents – or occultism: 59% of young people questioned believe in a superstition occult (seers, marabouts, ghosts, etc.), compared to 21% of the oldest.

“These informational disorders of the Internet era undoubtedly accentuate the traditional permeability of young people to these supernatural beliefs”, however moderate the authors.

The rise of these beliefs is part of a context where “distrust of vertical information from the authorities is accompanied by greater confidence in its horizontal transmission via social networks”, they analyze. . Today, 41% of young people use TikTok as a search engine and believe that an influencer who has a lot of followers can be a reliable source…

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