Are young voters more easily influenced?
Discussion question | This is for ages 14 to 16
Some people worry that younger voters are more easily influenced by social media, family or friends. Others argue this is true for voters of all ages.
Is it fair to say young voters are more easily influenced?
Tell us what you think:
You might want to structure your answer like this:
I think this [is / is not] a fair concern because [your reason]. If it is a risk, one way to reduce it could be [a solution]. However, others might feel that [an opposite view].
Make sure you read the comments from other Topical Talkers to see whether you agree or disagree with them.
Comments (257)
I really think that is true that younger voters are more easily influenced as they tend to believe everything said by someone they respect, wether that person is an influencer from social media or a group of friends that exert social pressure. This is because young people have little experience about life and doesn´t really know which political administration would be the more convenient for them. Also, young people are afraid of not fitting in the society or being marginated because of don´t agreeing with what "most" of the people think, leaving sometimes behind their real thoughts and beliefs to suit in the social circle surrounding. Political parties can take advantage of this by gaining popularity on social media and among influenciable young people, winning a large number of votes.
I agree because young ones can be cheated and bribed to vote for someone for a price
it is not good for sixteen year adult to vote beacuse they can be brain washed because they have so many things to deal with at that time
Thanks for sharing nice_mango. Are young people the only people who can be cheated, bribed and brainwashed? I'm keen to hear more of your ideas!
I believe that it is not only young people that can be cheated, bribed and brainwashed but I feel that this is more common among young people,or for the sake of this comment people below the age of 18, as their brains' have not fully developed. However the topics listed above also apply to older people but more often than not their political views have already been shaped by the people around them during their youth.
Young people are not the only ones who can be cheated, bribed or brainwashed. Adults also get bribed and brainwashed but it is just that adults are mature and can discern. They might only want to do it for corrupt reasons.
I somewhat agree with this, as I also believe that all ages can be influenced, but I think that people under 16 are easier to influence due to their social nature. As an under 16 myself, I find myself trying to keep up with the trends as much as any other person does, and I think that once people have made it past these years, they can understand their own stance and opinions better. Childhood is sort of a way for people to understand themself and the world around them better, and because of this I think that is is easier to be influenced by media, friends and family. I also don't see this as a bad thing, but a way to accept social trends and sort of "fit in", whereas adulthood is a time to apply these ideals to make the world a better place. Adulthood gives more personal freedom, as adults are allowed to vote and such, but I think that adults are allowed to vote only because they fully understand their own opinions to the extent that they can express them without much influence.
In conclusion, I think that people under 16 are more easily influenced, as part of their social nature, and that adults are less easy to sway as they understand their own opinions better.
I agree with your comment, because young people definitely have a higher need to follow trends, so they can be easily influenced. Most young voters also don’t have that much knowledge about politics yet, which can lead their vote being based on statements off of social media by people they can relate to. But older people can be influenced too, especially if they don’t fully understand tools like Artificial Intelligence or Social media as well as fake news, which can lead them to spreading fake information.
I disagree, I think older voters are more likely to take bribes and have more going on than a sixteen year old. I think through the years older voters tend to lose their integrity because they don’t have a lot of time left. I also think younger voters should be encouraged to vote more since they’re future is still ahead of them
hi this is fair minded elephant and I disagree with openhearted squid because it's not right to say that young voters are more easily influenced because think they are still learning because young people are still forming their opinions on politics, they listen, compare viewpoints and think when they are presented with new ideas rather than listening entirely to others. Young voters are exploring what they believe in and why. Even though their views often change but that is learning not manipulation so in my opinion young people are not easily influenced and they are still developing their knowledge about politics which is a necessary step towards being responsible and informed and voters so let's not mistake their open mindness for manipulation.
signing off: Fair minded Elephant
Well to be honest, I really don't buy your argument. I honestly don't think it is fair to stereotype all young voters under this category. The kind of people you speak of are immature, not all young voters are easily influenced into making a choice. The gem of a young one is their curiosity, which makes them to ask questions that allow them to compare what they feel would be best to them. Not all young people see something and immediately buy the idea, most of them do research in order to find out the full detail of the story.
I speak for myself when I say this, because Nigeria has always been a country where voting has been rigged by underage voters. I am 16, and I can be classified as a young voter. Despite this, I believe that I know what is best for my nation. I could have only accomplished this by research. To add up, I watch a lot of social media but I never really allow anything I see on there to define my thinking process. I know it is a wild jungle of information, which is mostly fake.
I believe that there are a lot of youths like me who also want the best for their country, which leads them to analyse the candidates that they think could solve a particular issue they feel is urgent. Such a choice can never be rushed by anybody, even if they like a candidate. Only immature people would vote based on their "gut" which then exempts most of the young people, because at such a stage they know better.
THANK YOU.
I agree because ... it is true young people can be influenced easily manipulated but if you reason it, they should write an aptitude test to check them true/false please respond. THANK YOU
I disagree because it is not all teenagers who are naive. It is only younger voters who are very ignorant and unaware of the happenings around them that will be influenced by social media. But unfortunately today, majority of teens are very unaware of the happenings around them because they are distracted by social media. Although, where I come from, most young people are very knowledgeable about these kind of things and even social media can not convince or influence their choice in voting. This actually depends on the way that those youngsters were raised and the core influencers of their worldview. If these youngsters are taught to be aware from a very young age, I do not think we will need to worry about them been influenced or brainwashed. For example, in my country, the 2027 elections are coming, and because everyone is informed and aware of everything that is happening, especially the corruption and bad governance, even the children can not be brainwashed to accept this particular government back to power.
I also think that they should not be giving a chance to vote because a teenagers voting decision can change the life of a country for over four years.They should not get to decide who who rule because of their inexperienced minds.
I agree because they can be easily influenced by someone who they believe and respect,and they worry too much about what other people think in their opinion.maybe some other people are like forced to believe in something even though if they don't because it might be peer pressure. the problem for this is that they might vote for someone that they don't believe is right.
I disagree, I think social media has made some people care more about what others think but that only affects people who spend too much time on social media so it could be a 18 year old or a 45 year old. But I do agree that there is a lot of pressure to believe what others are believe. Social media has made individuality slowly disappear
I strongly agree that younger voters are more likey to believe something said by someone they respect!!
I agree with you because most young teenagers don't really care much about about politics and elections and tend to sometimes believe what they hear like rumor's easily. those who are more older can easily tell them stories and reasons why they should choose this party or that party, the fact that teens don't really listen to news will make it easier for them to be influenced.
I agree because... young people are been influenced by adults through their behaviors and that is one of the reasons why young ones don't know what to do and just go to social media and get distracted .Also peer groups are the major cause of one being to social media because they will be the ones who will tell you to go and watch that on the internet.
WAYS OF REDUCING IT:
1. Not being influenced badly by friends, family, social media or peer groups
2. Making the right decision for themselves
3. Not always depending on the internet
4. avoiding cyber fraud from the internet.
5. Doing the right thing at the right time ⌚.
So from what I have written I hope you understood that younger ones are more easily influenced by social media , friends or family. THANK YOU.
I agree with you, when it comes to younger people voting, they have many options to choose from. So they vote with their most influential. and they don't get the chance to think before they choose. They sit all day watching influencers and doing nothing.
I agree because... young people are most likely to get influenced by other people , or even get payed to vote someone . Also because they’re young , most of them think that voting is some sort of silly joke , which in conclusion they don’t take it seriously and vote whoever comes first to their mind . So young people probably shouldn’t vote at that age since half of them are still immature and naive
Do you think that older people don't get influenced? If so, what have they learnt that makes them different to younger people?
I strongly disagree with you. Even if young voters are easily influenced does it make their political choice less valid and does having life less life experience necessarily make young voters more easily influenced or can make them more open minded and critical.
I agree with you.
Young people can easily be manipulated through gaslighting which makes them to doubt their own perception of reality, which is not fair at all, whereby people use it to there own advantage also. People that try and trick the young ones for voting gain to groom and build trust with them by making the person feel happy, special and understood. Young people's mature identities and wants also with needs can make them easily unguarded or exposed to manipulation. All this is because young ones are easily influenced by their love ones and very special people to them, which they do not want to make their love ones feel disappointed by not doing what they want them to do , whereby that is called ethical dilemma where personal integrity clashes with loyalty. All this can be used to the advantage of political parties , why all because of the manipulation and effect of influencers on the mind of younger ones whose mind are not fully developed and stable yet.
I absolutely agree with you. By giving young ones a chance to vote, they can just vote randomly without even knowing the background or the biodata of the person they are choosing beacuse of their limited experience in life. Not only that, with the abundance of informations in social media youngsters are tend to easily be influenced by the rumors. Teenagers haven't developed mature thinking that make them easily get brainwashed by others making them less suitable to be given the rights to vote. Even though nowadays some adults are also easy to be persuaded, but they surely already have a clear decision about who will they vote on later. Besides that, most teens are also lack of knowldege about the political side of the country which will make them less sure in choosing and leads to voting the wrong leader.
I agree with your point, particularly regarding the influence of powerful people and social pressure from young voters. Because the desire to fit in is strong at pretty much any age, I feel its particularly when people are still developing their identities, the idea that fear of not fitting in can influence political opinions really sticks out. I also believe that young voters may find it more difficult to determine which policies are actually beneficial to them due to a lack of life experience, which increases the likelihood that friends, influencers, and well known people online will have an impact. Its evident from your point that political parties can intentionally (rather than accidentally) use social media to market themselves to young voters.
Hey open hearted squid! I wanted to say that i completely by all means agree with you. Its logical and understandable why young voters are so easily influenced and you described why so well. Even if a young persons experiences are a lot, there is still much influence from social media’s such as tiktok instagram and etc. Also , political groups actually manipulate their abilities and upload “trendy” stuff to make teenagers feel more seen and included which helps make their mind more “open” to that political party. Also, what do you think about voting before you are 18? I would really like to hear your opinion.
I see your point, however I think the young generations these days are much better informed and have access to much more diverse information. I also think that it is easier for them to get involved in social causes then it was for the previous generations. I think the problem actually is with older generations who are not tech savvy and may be tricked by AI and tricked to think that fake images and videos and texts are true. Like with Brexit, the BBC has a study wich says that the majority of young people voted to stay and the majority of older people voted to leave the EU (bbc.com/news/magazine-36619342). There was a lot of misinformation including how much money would save for health services and older people are concerned with health services.
I really think that is true that younger voters are more easily influenced as they tend to believe everything said by someone they respect, wether that person is an influencer from social media or a group of friends that exert social pressure. This is because young people have little experience about life and doesn´t really know which political administration would be the more convenient for them. Also, young people are afraid of not fitting in the society or being marginated because of don´t agreeing with what "most" of the people think, leaving sometimes behind their real thoughts and beliefs to suit in the social circle surrounding. Political parties can take advantage of this by gaining popularity on social media and among influenciable young people, winning a large number of votes.
I agree with you openhearted_squid because younger people are easily influenced by people they respect and because they hardly listen to news they are more easily manipulated and may wrongly vote for any political party that is trending online.
I agree with you and your opinion on this topic. It's true that a lot of young voters are easily influenced by other people, like people they trust or influencers they see online. As you said before they don't have a ton of experience in life so they don't quite know what choice would be best for them. I also think your point on not fitting in is very valid, lots of people are afraid of not fitting into the majority of society just because they don't necessarily agree with everything most people think. Sometimes, like you stated, they might start to leave behind their own thoughts, opinions, and beliefs, because they think they won't fit in as well, or get along well with the social groups around them. Another very good point you made was how political parties take advantage of this need to fit in with others by gaining more popularity through social media and influential people, making believing young voters willing to choose that decision.
That is my opinion and how I personally agree with you, however some other people could say that young voters actually aren't easily influenced, that they are exposed to many different perspectives and ideas, and hear many types of viewpoints. Now because they also have access to sources to check information, they can use that knowledge to form their own opinion.
People who say that aren't necessarily wrong, but I just think that it's true that these days young voters are more inclined to going with the flow and sticking to whatever sounds right.
I agree because younger voters can be so vulnerable, since they don't have much political experience and their opinions are still very weak. As a result they end up trusting their peers or influencers that they admire, and in most cases, they never confirm the information provided to them. Many young people fear social exclusion, so they prefer to adapt to popular political views rather than their own opinions.
I think this is a fair concern because some of the young people nowadays are influencen because of what it's friends say,what they listen in the street or what they see in social media.But also other people I think that they vote or comment on politics because of what they learn by they friends,social media or in the street but they are no influenced because that is what they wan't but they learn those things by those ways.If it is a risk I think they are no ways to change that but maybe it can be changed telling people that they don't give their opinion based on what thet hear on the places but learn them be informed.
Hi,I think young voters are more easily influenced because now with social media the young people influence very easily and also vote is not a important thing for young people so they would vote what they would see in social media or hear in the street... I think young voters it's a very bad idea because they do not have the maturity to vote and is a lot of responsibility ,also they don't think the goverment care and some of the young people don't pay tax so they aren't interested.Also they don't have enough political knowledge to have a say in issues that affect an entire nation.
Hello! I agree with you at a certain point because, don’t you think that everyone can be influenced by external people? Obviously, the young people tend to follow others opinions, but it doesnt happen only in teenagers. Also, I believe that teenagers should receive a political education since children, so they could form their own opinion.
You had also mentioned that young people dont care things like taxes or politics, and I think is not fair for teenagers to day that, because a small part of them want to improve themselves by researching information about the political situation of their country.
Hi magical explanation!
On the one hand, I think like you. Young voters are more easily influenced by social media.
However, on the other hand. I'm not agree with you when yo said " voting is not a important thing for young people so thet would vote what they would see in social media or hear in the street" Some teenagers are really interested about voting and sharing their opinions. This is why they search for a lot of information. Some of them don't like to be influenced by nothing and anyone. They what to have their own opinion.
Don't you think so?
I think it is not a fair concern because it often mistakes "digital fluency" for "gullibillity". Younge voters are frequently more critical of the sources they consume than older generation, having to grow up in a era where misinformation is everywhere, well it's going to be tricky. If there is a risk of manipulation via internet or any social network, one way to reduce it could be enhancing media literacy programs that focus specifically on identifying A.I generated content.
However others might feel that young people are actually the most influenced, arguing that the sheer volume of social media content creates a "bandwagon effect" that overrides traditional independent research. Politicians can often post something on social media to make young people pick them when voting getting a large amount of votes. And we don't know if that post is even true, the politicians might even manipulate people via social media into picking them.
I agree because what you say is actually true, because we are becoing lazy due to digital techs and stuff which makes us lazy and not to do anything at home, workplaces etc. So we should try to ake gadgets to be useful and not useless.
I'm not sure about this because having a gadget has nothing to do with the fact that some young people easily get influenced so making gadget more useful wont change a thing. laziness too does not have anything to do with this topic.
I think this is a fair concern because young voters could be easily influenced by social media or people close to them. Young voters is at a risk of being influenced by people closed to them in making their vote. Most young voters still lack the experience in life and sometimes they just follow their friends or family. They are maybe also afraid of being left out if they don't follow the choice of their friend. As i have said before, young voters still lack the experience so this could easily happened. This is of course a serious issue remembering the result of the voting. I think this could be prevent by a good environment and family also play a big role here. If you're teached since small to make your own decision and don't always follow other people by your families, you are going to be more able to make your own decision with out being influenced. But this solution is not universal considering the condition of each people's life and families.
I think this is not a completely fair concern because being influenced by others is not something that only affects young voters; it applies to people of all ages. While younger voters may use social media more frequently, older voters are often influenced by traditional media, long-held family beliefs, or trusted community figures. Influence itself is not the problem—what matters is whether voters are able to think critically about the information they receive. In fact, many young people are more aware of misinformation online and are used to checking multiple sources before forming an opinion.
That said, there is a risk when algorithms push emotional or misleading content, especially to people who are still developing political knowledge. One way to reduce this risk could be stronger education in schools around media literacy. Teaching students how to question sources, recognise bias, and separate facts from opinions would help young voters make more independent decisions. Social media platforms also have a responsibility to clearly label political content and limit the spread of false information.
However, others might feel that young voters are more easily influenced because they have less life experience and may rely more on peers or online trends. While this can be true in some cases, it does not mean young voters are careless or uninformed. Overall, it is unfair to single out young people when influence shapes everyone’s political choices in different ways. What truly matters is giving all voters the tools to think critically and vote confidently.
I think this is not a completely fair concern because being influenced by others is not something that only affects young voters; it applies to people of all ages. While younger voters may use social media more frequently, older voters are often influenced by traditional media, long-held family beliefs, or trusted community figures. Influence itself is not the problem—what matters is whether voters are able to think critically about the information they receive. In fact, many young people are more aware of misinformation online and are used to checking multiple sources before forming an opinion.
That said, there is a risk when algorithms push emotional or misleading content, especially to people who are still developing political knowledge. One way to reduce this risk could be stronger education in schools around media literacy. Teaching students how to question sources, recognise bias, and separate facts from opinions would help young voters make more independent decisions. Social media platforms also have a responsibility to clearly label political content and limit the spread of false information.
However, others might feel that young voters are more easily influenced because they have less life experience and may rely more on peers or online trends. While this can be true in some cases, it does not mean young voters are careless or uninformed. Overall, it is unfair to single out young people when influence shapes everyone’s political choices in different ways. What truly matters is giving all voters the tools to think critically and vote confidently.
I disagree because... young voters can be easily influenced in some or many cases which are
young voters aren't developed mentally which makes them believe any trending news they see on the social media
young voters don't always have decisions of their own their they can be easily manipulated
young voters don't also have self control therefore they can easily get angry on a comment or can easily get threatened
THIS FOLLOWING POINT ARE MY VIEW I WOULD ALSO WANT TO HEAR OTHERS COMMENT OR PERSPECTIVE ON CAN YOUNNG VOTERS EASILY BE INFLUENCED
Well, I have to disagree to agree. I can see what you mean by saying that young voters can be influenced by social media and what is right and wrong to them through what social media says, but I don’t think that it’s just young voters that can be easily influenced. I personally think that everyone of all ages can be easily influenced through social media. If you can’t think for yourself and form an opinion of your own at the ripe age of 16 or even 45, you are going to be influenced.
Older people get influenced but they are able to distinguish and make the right choice for themselves though not in most cases. Most times their decisions tend not to be easily influenced by what others say.
I think that young voters are more easily influenced but it's not because they're weak or gullible, it's because they are still trying to form their identity. Their values and morals are still under construction so that's why they tend get influenced by other people. I think the idea of young people being able to vote isn't entirely a bad idea because young people tend to more open minded and also quicker to adapt. However, others might feel that young people are not suitable enough to vote because of they lack of political experience, likely to fall for misinformation, and vote based on trends and not politics.
I think this is a fair concern because young people today are easily influenced by the stuff on the internet. If it is a risk, one way to reduce it could be to strengthen self-esteem, which means they can strengthen a sense of self so they wouldn't rely on others. However, others might feel different because they feel people who have the same interests as them should influence the stuff other people do.
I want to talk about why they should allow 16 to 17 years to vote. yreasons are so that younger people can get experienced to know what is good for their country and so that it would not be only what the adults feel like doing that they do.
I came to tell you to check your work before submitting what is (yreason) next time please read properly and I also advise you as a friend and a brother. THANK YOU
I disagree because 16 and 17 year olds are not that mature compared to actual adults, even if 16 and 17 year olds can be knowledgeable about politics and such, they may still get swayed to vote for someone that in the long run would not benefit the country due to successful propaganda from presidential campaigns.
Do you think this is true of older voters as well?
I think this is a fair concern because a lot of young voters live inside algorithms that reward outrage and simplicity, so it is way easier to believe whatever gets shoved onto your screen instead of thinking for yourself, and I honestly see this with my own generation all the time when one viral clip suddenly decides everyone’s opinion for them. If this is a risk, the only real way to reduce it is to force schools to actually teach students how media manipulates people instead of pretending kids just magically become critical thinkers on their own. However, some people would argue that older voters are not any better and are just hypnotized by TV news, political nostalgia, or whatever their friends keep repeating, and honestly I think that is partly true. Still, I feel like young voters are being pulled in more directions at once, flooded with louder voices, and pressured to pick a side instantly, which makes it way harder for us to vote from our own real beliefs instead of someone else’s.
Thanks for sharing succinct_apricot. What do you think should be done about this?
I think the only real way to deal with this is to stop pretending people naturally learn how to think critically and actually teach it on purpose, especially when it comes to how media and algorithms manipulate attention, emotion, and opinions. Schools should be forced to teach students how outrage gets boosted, how clips are taken out of context, and why fast, emotional reactions are exactly what these platforms want, because democracy doesn’t work when people are trained to react instead of reflect. At the same time, this shouldn’t be framed as just a “young voter” issue, since older voters are clearly influenced by their own media bubbles too, but younger voters are being hit with a much faster, louder, and more overwhelming stream of information that pressures them to pick a side instantly. Until people are actually taught on how this stuff works and given time to slow down to chill, voting is going to feel less like a personal choice and more like just going along with whatever was the most influential and what topic had the most hype that week.
I agree with your opinion. in the present time, modernization and technological advancements are increasing rapidly. because of this, young voters are easily influenced.in today's world,young people trust the internet more than they trust themselves.they believe that the information on the internet is realistic and true
however,the internet contains a lot of false information.when a video is shown repeatedly or goes viral,you people start to think that the opinion is the only truth and best one.as a result, they do not want to use their own thinking power to judge what is right and wrong.they often consider emotional or partially true statements on the internet to be logical.
the real problems occurs when someone makes decisions without verifying the information and blindly trust the internet.therefore,young people should use their own conscience and intelligence while making decision.the should verify what is right and what is wrong instead of believing everything immediately .at the same time they should respect the opinion of elders.only then can we grow responsible and dutiful citizens.
yes because they think anything online is true. All this tiktokers that loves social seem to believe everything posts on ttiktok, instagram, youtube etc and other social media app so i think they can be influenced by even their friends in school
This is an interesting point strong_molecule. Do you agree that all young people are easily influenced or only some young people?
I disagree with this statement because assuming younger people believe everything they see online is unfair generalization. Being active online does not automatically mean being easily influenced, younger people are thought in school to question sources rather than accepting everything is true, for example: in my school teachers teach students since grade 5-6 about technology and misinformation, I know this because one of my cousin is already really educated about the spread of misinformation and she isn't easily influenced on what she sees online. Influence depends on awareness and critical thinking, saying that younger generations "think anything online is true" is an assumption not a fact. because the truth is, being influenced is not limited to age, anyone young or old can be influenced by friends and media. Therefore, I think it's wrong to claim that younger people are more easily influenced just because they use social media more. Influence is not about age, its about the ability to think critically.
Actually I think that young voters are the most influenced especially by what they see online. Most of them may not question that which have been seen online despite not having a genuine source of information. They may believe in unreal manifestos presented by campaigning politician as they are not that experienced to dictate promises that are impossible to be fulfilled as they are armature in the political world which makes them easier to be manipulated and confused of how to choose who to vote for.
Hello topical talkers, before we dive into the topic, we need to have an idea on what we are about.
firstly, I would start by saying what is voting. voting is the power the citizen have or exercise in politics in order to elect their leaders or representatives. voters on its own aspect are the different individuals that cast their vote separately .
In some countries like mine citizens at or above the age of 18 are allowed to vote. Most of their decisions are made by their parents and elders around them because they feel they are wiser and have experienced more than they have they follow them or listen to them and therefore making bad decision most of the times.
Hello topical talkers, before we dive into the topic, we need to have an idea on what we are about.
firstly, I would start by saying what is voting. voting is the power the citizen have or exercise in politics in order to elect their leaders or representatives. voters on its own aspect are the different individuals that cast their vote separately .
In some countries like mine citizens at or above the age of 18 are allowed to vote. Most of their decisions are made by their parents and elders around them because they feel they are wiser and have experienced more than they have they follow them or listen to them and therefore making bad decision most of the times.
Hello topical talkers, before we dive into the topic, we need to have an idea on what we are about.
firstly, I would start by saying what is voting. voting is the power the citizen have or exercise in politics in order to elect their leaders or representatives. voters on its own aspect are the different individuals that cast their vote separately .
In some countries like mine citizens at or above the age of 18 are allowed to vote. Most of their decisions are made by their parents and elders around them because they feel they are wiser and have experienced more than they have they follow them or listen to them and therefore making bad decision most of the times.
Hello topical talkers, before we dive into the topic, we need to have an idea on what we are about.
firstly, I would start by saying what is voting. voting is the power the citizen have or exercise in politics in order to elect their leaders or representatives. voters on its own aspect are the different individuals that cast their vote separately .
In some countries like mine citizens at or above the age of 18 are allowed to vote. Most of their decisions are made by their parents and elders around them because they feel they are wiser and have experienced more than they have they follow them or listen to them and therefore making bad decision most of the times.
I think this is a fair concern because upcoming generations most often care of what are others doing, what is trending and what people say about their opinions so they most often follow the crowd and do what others do. One way to reduce this to encourage them to speak out their opinions, creating programs to build confidence and teaching them to not to depend on others.
However others might feel that they should not be allowed to vote.
I agree because... it is quite true because upcoming generations matter because they are tomorrow's leaders and they need to have a say in the economy as we speak and we need to know why the economy is the way it is and be able to do something about it. THANK YOU.
In my own opinion, I think young voters are easily influenced by the social media and people around them. Normally during elections, voters are expected to vote for the person of their choice but that is not the case for most young people. This is because young people have little or no experience when it comes to politics and elections, therefore most of them are gullible and can easily be pressured and influenced by what they watch on the social media, their friends and families.
Most politicians also use the social media to gain popularity among the youths which also tend to influence their choice of vote.
Parents sometimes force their wards to vote for candidates they support and young people with no other choice will have to obey and respect their parents" point of view.
In conclusion, this can be stopped by public enlightenment on politics in schools. Young people should learn to be independent of others and also be emotionally stable when it comes to voting.
You say "most politicians use social media to gain popularity among the young" - can you share evidence and examples of this?
I think this is a fair concern because of young people believe in what social media, or other role models say, without even checking the source to see if there is conspiracy or error in what they are doing.
Also, most of the young people tend to follow others so not to be left out in the modern society, because of what young minds are doing today is just to catch up to the daily trend of everyday life, without even checking if the page or source is accurate.
Most times, people are just frustrated and do not no what to to, so they do whatever pleases them.
So, in conclusion, I think it would have been good if young ones could vote, but because of the modern day world, it will be a very risky action to take.
While i don't completely agree, I understand why people would feel concerned over younger people to be easily influenced. Some may spread misinformation, or be clearly too young to understand some more mature themes over the news or social media.
In my own honest opinion, I really think it depends on the person--and what they're consuming that's making them influenced. An example of an influenced (or influencer) teenager was Greta Thunberg. Even if she isn't a teenager anymore, she's made great changes towards global problems. Greta Thunberg saw what's true, and knows what she's doing. This makes her a good influencer, since she can and is making the world a better place.
As the topic states, young people can absolutely be easily influenced. Especially when they have less digital knowledge and can fall victim of hoaxes and misinformation--and can't always rely on themselves yet. But if we all encourage learning more about how we control digital usage, and also how we interact with others, we can be less influenced and know what's right.
In conclusion, it can be fair to say that young people are more easily influenced. But it shouldn't be soon, when we all learn and know about controlling what to consume and what to not.
Here's all of what i think. If you have a different opinion, I'd love to hear it!
In my opinion, I believe that young voters are truly easily influenced this is because, youths nowadays are more easily prone to influence of peer pressure and social media.
Young voters are still in a developmental stage and they have lesser experience and are more likely to make choices from older voters or social media influencers. Also, they say experience is the best teacher young voters have limited political knowledge and exposure which can make them make decisions based on what others think and not what they're sure about.
In addition, most young people have not overcome the fear of social backlash, they often want to do things that will please the internet due to fear of criticism making them adopt political perspectives without genuine conviction or agreement. According to statistics, around 79.8% of youths used social media for political activities which hugely influenced their decisions.
I Think this is a fair concern because 90% of the people in our world today are on the social media and when you are on social media you could be influenced by your followers or by the people you follow either negatively or positively and we all know that most people are influenced negatively and if one of the people contesting for the election would definitely be on social media
and they would get votes because there is always a feeling for people to join the crowd so this is my own view
I personally think young people can be easily influenced by the people they hold with high esteem or even by trends on social media platforms. Many young people today do not watch the news, making them politically disengaged. This may not be applicable to all young people, but I believe most may make this mistake. Ways to curb these problems may be to:
1. Strengthen civic educations so that young people may may be aware of how laws and policies are made.
2. Reduce political contents driven by famous influencers.
Nevertheless, I believe that if young people are allowed to vote it will bring about better representation of youth interest like politicians now knowing the issues that affect them the most, it may also bring about policy modernization, because many young people may support new ideas and reforms causing the government to adapt to technological and social modification of policies.
In conclusion, allowing young people to vote is a very good idea but precausions should be taken make voting free and fair
As a topical talker, this topic is not really an easy topic to discuss on because so many countries have talked about it and have not really found a solution so I will try my best to talk about this topic. Based on recent research, including 2024-2025 electoral data, this topic has been going on for a while now, and evidence shows that young ones are not necessarily more influenced because I feel this is the era were young ones question everything and I will not lie, I also do that a lit of times. This is also the "trendsetter" era were youths are most times intrigued by what they see online but what I feel is that most young people if not all like to follow what their friend think, you know maybe they want to fit in or want to have the same ideas as their friends or even loved ones and you might even see that when one of their friends or loved ones have an idea or choose something, most young ones go online and search for the meaning that is why there are many AI apps nowadays. The most known age for voting right now in most countries is 18 and for me, I feel that when you are 18 you are practically an adult because that is when some people prepare to enter college, start drinking, driving or even going to live on their own and so is the same with 16 year olds and that is when they can boldly say that they make decisions for themselves. So me personally as a topical talker, I think that young voters are not really easily influenced.
I think this is not a fair concern. When I read the first topic about lowering the voting age, I was thinking that young people are more easily influenced by someone they respect, such as family members, friends, or popular people on social media. This is because young people don't know a lot about politics or goverment issues, they may not have much experience on making political decisions. When they see opinions shared confidently online or by people they trust, they might just accept those views without checking if they are true.
However, this doesn't mean that only young people are influenced. Voters of all ages can be influenced by social media, news, and the people around them. Older people may trust certain news channels, which can also change how they vote. This shows that influence is a part of a human behavior, not just affecting young people.
In conclusion, I agree that young voters are more easily influenced than older people. This is because they have less life experience and are more likely to trust people the admire, especially on social media. This can be reduced if young people are taught to think critically and make their own decisions. With the right education, they can become more independent and better voters.
hi I'm confident message and I feel this website is a lovely way for children to use their voice because if you are shy you should still get a say. For some children I feel this website may not affect them as much but its still a lovely way to grow more confidents. or if a child feels differently about a peace of learning and they're to shy to tell a teacher they could suggest it on this app to help grow their confidents and then maybe next they could tell a teacher. so that's me done know bye see you next time
I don’t think it’s totally* fair to say young voters are more easily influenced because people of all ages get influenced by social media, friends, or family. Even adults can believe fake news or follow trends online. For example, during the 2016 US elections, studies showed that lots of adults shared and believed false information online, not just teenagers.
If this is a risk, schools could help by teaching students how to check facts and think for themselves before voting. That way, young people can make their own choices instead of just copying what others say. This also give way of forming a stable and peaceful world
Some people might argue that young voters don’t have enough life experience, so they could be more easily influenced by friends or viral posts.
But honestly, being influenced isn’t just about age it happens to everyone. The important thing is learning to think for yourself before you vote.
I think it's a fair concern because nowadays, youngsters are addicted to social media and they use it almost for everything. Social media makes the youngsters to blindly trust them, just because of their fame and influence. However, some may say that it's just a entertainment package, but it creates a useless impact addicts the young minds to take it seriously. In this Gen-Beta generation, it has become common to see youngsters checking their mobile screens first thing in the morning instead of greeting their parents. That is why I believe social media has the power to brainwash youngsters, even influencing something as important as voting. For example, in our state, recently one actor has came into politics and his fans, especially youngsters supports him blindly without any experience or reason. This is what is called, transforming fans into voters which include lack of thinking.
Social media addiction among youngsters is no longer just a local issue; it is a global phenomenon.In countries like the Philippines and Brazil, youth political opinions are heavily shaped by viral reels, influencers, and celebrity popularity rather than policies or experience.This global pattern clearly shows that social media does not just entertain, it educates, influences, and sometimes manipulates. According to me, When popularity replaces reasoning, democracy becomes a show and followers becomes voters!
I think it's true because young people have
been influenced. Suddenly we have countries which had a discussion on this
but have no solution. We have young people who have a little experience on this.They vote or comment by seeing on what friends are doing. They are afraid of
getting part with them by not agreeing with what of the most peaple thinks.Political parties can take advantage in this.having popularity on social media can influence young people. This peaple don't have enough political knowledge. They are also afraid of talking because of how there friends will talk. Young people nowadays listen to what peaple will say on streets
Can you share where you found your evidence for this?
I found my evidence in news and in internet
I think that young voters are easily influenced because they are not that experienced like the experienced ones.Most of them are influenced by peer groups at school and some by their parents or social media influencers.If it is at risk, one way to reduce it is by giving them time to make their own decision.Others might feel that they are right of their decision of not voting.
I think that this isn't entirely correct. The truth is that different generations from different ages would have a total difference in their mentality. Let us see some examples.
(These will all be according to 2026)
Let's start form the top, minor teens that are unable to vote (13-17 year-olds). This generation is known as having a stubborn mindset, standing on business just because. These minors are capable of voting as the are hard to influence.
Going down to 12 year old and down, these are easily influenced, and shouldn't be able to vote. They have a simple mentality, and can and will choose things that are in their advantage. Some people working for the people that will be elected can lure the children into voting their boss in exchange for something they had wanted desperately like a game pass or a game currency. This variable isn't in all children as some are stubborn too but this isn't a high amount.
The answer for this question is *it depends* not all generations are capable of holding this responsibility.
I think this is not a fair concern. Anyone at any age can be influenced there are just different ways people do it. For younger people they can be influenced by someone they deeply trust or respect like their mom or an influencer. Older people are mostly effected by talking about how a specific person can fix one of their problems like social security or medical care.
Young people are still developing their minds.morals and personality all most all young people don't know how politics work and would mostly vote based on just their opinion or the opinion of someone I trust as I said earlier. Most young people just try to fit in with whatever everyone else says. Many contenders for president/leader abuse this weakness by using certain tactics to make themselves seem more fit.that gains them popularity and recognition and that leads to votes.
You say "almost all young people don't know how politics works" - I'm not entirely sure about this, can you share where you found your evidence?
I think this is a fair concern because children are more vulnerable to social media, which will inflict their vision on how they should pick, at this matter also we discussed in late 2025 about a country banning social content (media) for under sixteens and this ban has been officially made and discusses on other places in Europe by party's for the election's, for example Australia who has officially mad the ban along with other country's indicating to this ban. Back to the matter. As I said one way to reduce the example is a social media ban for under sixteen. However, others might feel that some are mature and fit enough to vote which might cause a stir and bring confusion. I agree with open-hearted squid as they might be influenced by there friends, family and more so this can change there views making Political parties can large votes. Again I love Wunmi's questions as many other people even senior people can be bribed and cheated.
In conclusion, I believe it is fair concern and it has a lot of backslides.
I agree with the statement because it's true that they're more easily influenced and because in the end, they don't know themselves properly so for it is easier for them to follow others. This is something that it's usually reduced by age and experience.
However, it's true that it can happen with someone from other age ranges, I just think it is more common in young people. In fact, it can be clearly seen in how teenagers tend to follow each other, follow the group to fit more than trying to find their own answers.
I think one way to reduce it are initiatives that encourage critical thinking, like topical talk, which makes young people think for themselves. The second one will be teaching them about politics and history in an impartial way so that they are informed and educated.
I think this is a fair concern, because children tend to listen to their parents opinions and copy them, or choose something different just to spite them. I, for one, know I would turn to my parents for guidance regarding such an impactful matter. While I don't always agree with their views, most of the decisions they make have good outcomes. In addition to that, I often find myself buried in school work, which means I don't always have time to check the news, the sources and try to sort out what's accurate and what's completely fictional about a candidate
. During an election, this is crucial. People can't show up to vote, having done their homework the night before, like me and my friends often do at school. I also believe children should be let to be children. Voting is a stress they shouldn't have to deal with yet. Teenagers are used to silly fights or arguments, a habit they learn to leave behind with time. By this, I mean they could kind of blackmail each other, saying they might not be friends anymore if they don't all vote for the same candidate. Such an act could have serious consequences.
I know children that sometimes don't study or get in trouble on purpose, in order to get back at their parents. During the election, behaving this way would most certainly lead to one candidate having more votes than he/she deserves.
One way to reduce this risk could be making sure the voters are mature enough and schooled in such matters, but that would mean keeping the voting age as it is, not lowering it.
You raise some very insightful points! Do you have an idea of how we could ensure voters are educated enough to feel confident exercising their democratic rights?
I do not think this is a legitimate worry as it is focusing only on young people and ignoring that voters of all ages have been "echo chambers" on social media. To be sure, while Gen Z might be spending five hours a day on TikTok, older generations are often just as exposed to the risk of misinformation on Facebook.
Studies reveal that even though youth are "super online", they are becoming more and more distrustful. As per a 2024 survey, almost 90% of young voters want the truth but they find the political "environment" quite discouraging. Personally, I think that young voters are getting digitally literate even faster because they have had to identify "fake news" since the very first day they started using a phone.
If social media influence is one of the dangers, then the only way out is definitely mandatory media literacy in schools. We teach kids how to find the value of an unknown in algebra, so why not teach them how to "figure out" the presence of a bot in the comment section?
However, some really believe that young voters are at risk because they are in a "socialization phase" where the influence of peers is at its strongest. There are those who even say that a young person might be voting just because they see their roommates doing the same. But seriously? I would prefer that someone vote because of a "social nudge" than not vote at all.
For me, it seems like a very condescending attitude to label young people as being "easily led" which is, to me, the same as saying they do not have their own minds.
Very well researched, how did you find the survey you cited?
I believe that it is not a fair concern because people of any age are susceptible to being influenced by social media, family, or friends.
Everyone is on social media, adults and teens alike. Social media is a large space filled with public opinions and slander campaigns. Take for example the 2024 Presidential election in the U.S where democratic and republican videos were being spread worldwide. Some of the information sometimes being false, but without it being flagged on social media many people fell for the misinformation.
This remains true when it comes to family and friends. Hearing those around us can easily form opinions. As young kids we are more likely to believe in things that people in our family believe in. If you grew up hearing conservative beliefs often times even in adult age we will believe those things. Many of us are negligent in believing opposite of what our parents or role models say because “why would somebody we look up to so much lead us in the wrong direction?”
While many may believe that being influenced comes with age, that is not the case. Becoming easily influenced in trends, language, and politics comes from not correctly educating yourself as a person. Going back to the 2024 elections, many relied simply on social media to give them their information, neglecting doing their own research and seeing themselves if the sources they used were reputable. Voting is a privilege and it comes bearing great responsibility. You are in charge of making sure you are not swayed by anything that you do not do your own research on.
I agree with this statement. Info that can lead to misinformation can affect all ages, and not just younger voters. Especially if friends around you, no matter what age, can change your thought process and can affect your decision-making. Like you stated earlier, trends can affect not only teens but everyone. According to the University of Maine, 59.9% of the world's population is on social media daily, and politicians' ideals can easily spread to anyone who happens to watch their video. Some people might argue that younger voters would vote more emotionally. Adults can also make emotionally driven decisions without deep research; older age doesn't guarantee good decision-making. Additionally, they could say that younger voters might not have as much life experience as older voters. I respectfully disagree, because young people are directly affected to long term problems, as they need to take over when they are older. This could therefore push them to research and become more knowledgeable in that field. Lived experience isn't only about age, as the younger voters could have a strong understanding of the current problems, and could have ideals that fix them. In conclusion, I agree with your ideas, as age doesn't necessarily mean they are easier to influence.
I think this is not a fair concern because young voters are not the only ones involved. Adults also listen to social media, friends and famiy. For me, everyone can be influence not only young people. In my opinion we should have a subject where we learn how to vote and do not be influence by others . However, others might fell that young people trust so much in social media and follow what they see online without thinking.
I think this is a fair concern because it is scientifically proven that if a person's prefrontal cortex is not yet developed they might tend to be more easily influenced by others. The prefrontal cortex is a part of the brain that develops through the mid 20s and helps with looking at things in the long term plus being more rational. In the adolescent stage where it is not developed, young voters might do more emotional thinking than critical thinking. For example, if a person is furious they are less likely to think critically. The adolescent brain is more response to a reward system and is more flexible therefore they are more responsive to their environment which might be their friend group or family. This may cause peer pressure to be another reason that younger voters might be more easily influenced. If it is a risk, one way to reduce it could be having more educational lessons about peer pressure and how to stand firm in one's own beliefs. However, other might feel that young voters can vote for who they truly think should be president, as they are open minded to new experiences and motivated by climate change, education , gender disparities as all those issues affect their futures. Futhermore, others might think that age doesn't affect an individual's understanding about politics and are willing to take others perspectives into accountability. To summarize, young voters could be more easily influenced because their prefrontal cortex is not yet developed.
Voting within a democratic government is usually restricted by age as a concern; however, how easily an individual is swayed pertains to their background, maturity, and mental susceptibility, rather than their age.
From experience, I have seen friends express how their relatives' generational beliefs related to communism have directly impacted their beliefs regarding the American government system. These passed-down ideologies are often fed to an individual from a young age, and the stigma around ageism makes it harder for them to delve into other ideas at their own pace. As for maturity and mental susceptibility, these refer to the mental state and ability of a person to understand and critically examine heavily debated topics with an open mind, yet, in today's society, mental health concerns are often proposed by traditional values.
For others, these aspects are outweighed by age because most young individuals are in the early stages of frontal lobe development. While I do agree that a young individual's brain is less developed, the level of understanding varies heavily depending on the person's upbringing.
Regardless of my opinion, a solution to reducing concerns in general may lie in sharing all candidate information in succinct ways for easy digestion, engaging in various forms of campaigns that connect with voters in an in-person context, and requiring a check to ensure an individual is mentally fit for voting. After all, these proposed ideas are only tackling some of the most prevalent issues, stemming from influence.
I think is a fair concern, because young people are very impressionable. Your prefrontal cortex only fully develops at 26-years-old, which means that teenagers do not have the same abilities to think through decisions the way adults can, and therefore may rely on peers, influencers, politicians or celebrities to help them form opinions on certain matters. This means their views will be influenced by the views of those they are surrounded by and therefore may not accurately reflect them. In addition, social media algorithms (which many young people rely on as a source of information and contribute significantly to what opinions they may form) are designed to show users content they will like and that there is a high chance they will click on, meaning that users' views can often be narrowed by only being shown certain content that does not display a range of standpoints and each one's validity. Many young people are also victims of peer pressure and may make decisions driven primarily by a desire to be liked, as many other Topical Talkers have mentioned.
While I do agree with the fact that youngsters are easily influenced by external factors such as relationships, family and ongoing trends, it is important for them to have an active role in today's society. The status quo is rapidly changing and I feel it is of utmost importance for them to have a saying in it.
However, I do also feel it is critical for them to know how to vote correctly. Not in the way of supporting a specific side of the political spectrum and leaning in on bias, but being able to identify propaganda. This way, they will be able to figure out where they stand and prove resistant against manipulation.
I agree with this viewpoint because younger voters are often more vulnerable to influence from people they admire or from peer pressure within their social circles. Since they usually lack life and political experience, it can be difficult for them to critically evaluate different political administrations and understand which policies truly serve their interests. The fear of social exclusion or being judged for holding a different opinion can also push young people to conform rather than express their genuine beliefs. As a result, political parties can easily exploit social media and influencers to shape opinions and gain support, sometimes prioritizing popularity over meaningful political discussion.
What’s your viewpoint in this subject?
I think yes, 'cause younger people tend to have more inmatura opinions, because we haven't the time living adults have had to experience, learn, discern, etc so that make us easier to influence, and we teenagers are much more familiarized with social media and got our main informations from there, so social meddia campaigns with psycological or propagandistical tricks that can work on adults are much more easier to works on teenagers, so, i think its better to maintain the now standing age, maybe 2 years doesn't seem too much but in adolescence it is surely
I think that younger people get influcenced more easily. they maybe have a political idea, but at 16 you don't know everything about history or politics, so they would vote according to their ideas, maybe not consciously yet, or as a joke, some kids in my opinion don't have the maturity to put a political idea into practice and they could take it as a joke. it is true that the percentage of people who vote would increase, but we must vote consciously, for a better future, our future, and we can't ruin it
I absolutely agree with this statement, I think that it's true that young voters are more easily influenced as they tend to be more impulsive comparing to adults and to believe pretty much everything a person they respect and look up to says.
Also, they believe pretty much everything they see or read on the internet: in fact, checking if an information is true or not is an activity that is just vanishing.
That's not just because they love the dopamine that the social media gives to them, it's also because they find it familiar: from the very start, the algorithm will learn how the user's mind functions and what he/she believes in, creating a space where the user already just feels comfortable and doesn't question anything.
In a world where more and more young people or children start entertaining themselves with social media it will be more and more difficult for them to question whether they find appreciable and constructive what they are seeing and what their algorithm has created.
I also wanted to talk about the fact that young people's frontal and prefrontal lobe aren't fully grown, so they think with a less critical mind, we can clearly see that in their behaviour or in how lightly they approach life.
As a conclusion, I find teenagers brilliant people, with extroardinary minds: some of them can even think in a more rational way than some adults.
I just find that because they are easier to corrupt they just aren't ready to handle so much power such as voting.
I think that young voters can be easily manipulated since they don't think with their own head but they more want to receive the approval of peaple they like.I also think that young voters aren''t enought mature to understand the topic of choosing who they want to vote and what the leaders even means to say.They also use much more social media than adults who usually vote,and, as we all know,on socail media there are many fake news wich can influence teenagers into voting for wrong choices,it kinda manipulates them.It is essential expecially for young peaple to vote for someone who will really help the population get better,they should vote for someone who sharees their own idea,they vote for themselfs, not for other peaple who spread fake news and manipulates them into voting something they shouldn't vote.The future of the world is in the hands of young peaple who will build their own future life,so I think it's right to say that teenagers should vote only once they are mature peaple and not when they are only 16 years old,they have to take their time into thinking of the better choises they will have to make in the future and that will lead to great and bright consequences.
I think that younger voters' being more easily influenced is not a fair concern because we have been brought up in a world that allows young people to think freely compared to in the past where young people were forced to believe other peoples' ideas. If it is a risk one way to reduce it could be training learners in school how to research different political parties, but not in a politically suggestive way, which in some countries can be difficult. However, others may feel that young people should not vote as they are more exposed to political influences like family, media or friends and are not sure of themselves let alone politics. Although this is true by allowing younger voters we also get access to new people. This forces political parties to fight to earn their votes. This may lead to parties having to do more for the country which in turn improves the lives of everyone in the country.
I think younger voters are obviously influenced by the world that is near them, but what they think at the begining of their career like voters can change during the time. At the start they are influenced by them friends, their family and especially what they see on the social media, but when they grow up they start to inform more and choose friends that have their same idea.
The younger voters can be influenced by their family but it's not sure; depend by the character of everyone because is different, like a strong character hardly ever are influenced by someone else.
I say that young people are influenced easier because the people that they look up to are on social media and for young people doing what's popular so that they can fit in is what happens most of the time.
Sometimes they might be following a good cause but sometimes it won't be good at all. Parents beliefs and opinions also play a massive part because when you are always around your parents, which is 90% of the time, so their influence is great. Because you as the younger child or teen might want support, to seem more experienced, but mainly because adolescents have the greatest emotional connection with their parents.
This can be dampened by the voter being exposed to different views from multiple different people, whether it be friends, other adults or people from the television, exposure is a great way for a younger voters to expand their perspective and choose what they think is best.
The other way of thinking is that young voters do have the right to speak their own vote and can follow who they want independently, if they follow a influencers point of view it's because when people look up to someone it is their idols, and when you have an idol, you want to be like that person, how they act, their personality, how they play (if a sports person) and political views, so it is fair to say that they aren't influenced because people can make independent choices when they are adults and I say this because majority of countries only let you vote once you become an adult.
Hi, i agree with this statement because i think that if i am an adult that i have a age for vote nd for pay a tax, i could decide where the money who the state take of the our taxes goes to. The citizens can be vote for decide where the money of the taxes gose, and the options who can the citizens can be vote they couyld be chosen by the state.
I don't think it's fair to say young voters are more easily influenced. I think they are just more honest about where their ideas comes from. When I talk with my classmates, ideas don't come from a single place. They come from dinning table conversation, a video that piqued their interest, a classroom disscusion that changed their mind, or seeing a parent struggling with prices or health care. That's what informs our thinking.
But adults are also influenced and often in a quiet way. Many people vote for the same party simply because it's what they're used to. Some people believe one source of news without questioning it. This kind of influence is invisible simply because it's been around a long time, not because it's so much smarter. Of course, young people can be influenced, but so can everyone. This difference is that young people still question their beliefs instead of just defending them out of habit.
in my opinion i think no because everybody is not really influenced easly but most people can be because young people can be influence easely just for atenttion but thats my opinion
thanks for reading this
from sympathetic_chocolate
young voters are easily influenced because they can be brainwashed by adults who can tell them who to vote for.👌
I think this is not a totally fair concern because young voters are not the only ones who get influenced. Adults also get influenced by social media, news channels, and even their families, but nobody says they shouldn’t vote. For example, I’ve seen adults share fake news on WhatsApp or believe everything their favourite politician says, so age doesn’t automatically mean smart voting.
That said, being influenced can be a risk, especially for younger people who spend a lot of time online where algorithms push extreme opinions. A way to reduce this could be teaching better media literacy in schools, like how to spot fake news or check different sources before believing something. If young people learn how to think instead of what to think, that problem becomes much smaller.
However, others might feel that 16-year-olds are still figuring out who they are and might copy their parents’ or friends’ views. I understand that, but I also think having a vote could make young people take politics more seriously, instead of ignoring it. When something affects your future: like education, climate change, or jobs; you should have a say, even if you’re still learning.
So overall, I don’t think young voters are more easily influenced, just influenced in different ways, like everyone else.
Well, I disagree with you as I think it is a fair concern because young are highly influenced by social media and people they trust so they don't have their independent decision according to their OWN point of view.
They have a limited political experience, so they lack some skills to qualify them to vote. Compared to old voters, their votes are less effective and reasonable as they are still shaping their worldview, values, social identity so the surrounding around them strongly affects their political views.
Let me tell you that if young voters were just allowed to vote, they would vote depending on their "feelings", which could make a problem. Voting requires experience, prior knowledge, experience, and skills. Without all of these things, the chance of voting shouldn't be given to young people.
They can prepare themselves from an earlier age if they are highly engaged in issues like climate change and social justice but giving them the chance from a young age could be dangerous- as wrong decisions can be taken leading to a weak country so that when they are 18 or even 16, they are ready and can choose an effective answer that shapes their society.
I understand your argue point and I agree with you that old people can be influenced, too but their experience and prior knowledge stop them before being strongly influenced. When it comes to voting, they are responsible enough to choose an accurate studied answer.
Actually, I really think that young voters around the age of 18-19 are also young and they are voters themselves and at the stage they are currently undergoing they would get the mind set of, "I am an adult so I can do what so ever I want to do, so do not tell me what I am supposed to do". when the voter have this kind of mind set it would become difficult to control them and they would be free to make their decision on who they would vote to be their leader. I would conclude by saying that young voter are not easily influenced when they develop this mindset of their own.
I do think that the younger generation are more easily influenced by their surroundings because of their undeveloped ability of decision-making. Most of the time, younger people listen to their friends more than their parents. It’s very common and understandable behavior . Children or teenagers tend to rebel because they want to be socially accepted and avoid being left out, not because they don’t trust their parents or guardian. These young people want to show independence and form their own identity, rather than always following parental guides. However, parents have authority over their children, and they should monitor their child’s decisions (not fully take control of them). This behavior can affect their vote, only following the latest trends and political views of their friends and social circles without having their own opinion. Other than that, campaign groups can use personal data and online behavior to create appealing messages targeting the younger people. Instead of a general campaign message, they analyze what young people like and dislike—then use emotionally targeted ads to match those interests to increase votes. One way to stop this risk is by improving the younger generation’s critical thinking skills. Schools can provide political debate topics to train students to have their own argument and not get easily influenced by the internet.
I think young voters are and aren’t influenced easily because it depends on if they believe the internet or not as if they believe in the internet they could select a horrible person to lead the country.And for the people that don’t believe in the things on the internet they believe in themselves.
In my view, young people are easily influenced especially by social media. Almost all young people have social media, which makes the political party to create a social media account to make the young people vote for him. You may think but what type of videos do political parties make? They make types of videos that young people stay to see them. Almost all of them make dances, viral videos and even memes only to convince young people to vote for him. However other might disagree because they might think that young people will not stay to watch their videos but as they made things that are viral in social media, many people stay to watch them.
I want to say that I think it is not a fair concern because, the new generation that we have today could be easily influenced by peers, family members, social media,etc.
my reasons are that the young voters could be influenced and then some people who are part of the election could use this opportunity to get votes.
My reasons are because if the person wins the election because of influence placed on voters the rule of the community would not be the main leader that was supposed to be elected by the citizens.
I hope I have been able to convince both all of you reading this comment,thanks.
I think this is a fair concern because truth to be told most first timer voters are more likely to reform their thoughts based on what they hear or see on the news rather than experience.
Another reason is that young voters are most likely to follow trend setters which is not entirely their fault and ( since the age they are in is actually an easily influential stage) and therefore they are quicker to support and abandon new parties.
I think that this is a fair concern but not only to young people but voters of all ages. No matter how experienced people are in voting, you would hardly find people who are not influence by the social media, friends and family.
Firstly, i will want to talk about the social media. This is a very important thing that may actually influence voters. What people may see on social media, may most likely affect their mindset and how they see things. Rumors and facts are both generated from the social media and people decide to choose anyone of them and take it as the "truth". Meanwhile, it may not be true. This usually affect people's vote and people tend to "sell their vote to the social media." By this statement, I mean that the allow the social media to wrongly influence their votes.
Secondly, I would talk about the pressure from family and friends. This can be characterized under peer pressure. How people see an individual, may affect the individual's mindset. People may want to please others, mostly friends and family, with their vote and get easily influenced. Instead of them being firm on their ground, they fall under peer pressure and vote based on their peers' feelings.
As of now, I think that their is no standard solution to this problem but the best measure is making sure that people's opinion or the social media should not completely influence an individual's vote. By saying this, I mean it may actually affect your reasoning, but it should not change the individual's vote.
Young voters who know what they want and are aware of what goes on around them cannot be easily influenced. If they are mature enough, they cannot be easily manipulated or influenced due to their critical thinking and better understanding of issues
I strongly believe that young voters can be more easily influenced by social media, family or friends. Nevertheless, we cannot say they are the only ones who can be influenced, also adults. I would say that everyone can be influenced by other people or social media which there everyone can find plenty of information both false and true. However, we could say that for young people is easier but this is normal since they are creating their own identity and while they follow other people's opinions and rely on them without knowing if they are real or not. Besides, one of the biggest challenges for them is feeling accepted in our society, and the vast majority prefer to change who they are just to fit in with others.
To conclude, young people gets easily influenced but this will change when they learn how to form their own opinion.
Hello! I am Illuminated Owl and today I will discuss about how young people is influenced when voting. First, I must confess that I do not know so much about this theme because I do not have yet the minimum age for voting, but I will suppose my opinion. I do not know so well about politics and about voting, but I guess that many of the information that comes to the current voters is obtained from the social media rather than from closer people; and, in my opinion, I would not say that is the best way to choose the next president. When voting, I think that we must follow our opinions, decisions and values choosing by our own; however, it is also good if we are influenced by ideas from different people that can make us to think on what is good or not. From my point of view, this can help to get new beliefs, to accept the ones from other people and to respect; but also, we can reach a level in which we can be manipulated, or even in which we can go after others' opinions in order to be accepted by them or even by society. But a great problem is that, nowadays, not only our friends and our family can convince us to vote for a certain politician; also, the social media can take a very important role, usually between the youth, and many times, by an untrusting way, as this information can be false or harm our feelings. In my opinion, to solve this, real news must arrive to all the population without supporting any political party, so that everyone can receive the real information that we want and that will help us to vote by our own and without being too much influenced.
I personally think that older people are more easily influenced than younger people. Its a bigger problem for whole democracy cause older people can vote in basically any elections. If younger people (min. 15 yo) had the opportunity to vote I think the results of elections would be much different. Of course I cant rule out that some people are more naive than others and can be more easily manipulated. The availability of internet is also having a big impact on people, in a positive way until someone changes the algorithm and censors more content which has freedom of speech; than it would look like smth out of 1984.
I think that this is a fair concern. This is because young people tend to be easily manipulated than the oldest. Younger voters are influenced by their friends, family and social media. Most of the times, this results in people voting something that they actually don't think, or even that is genuinely bad for them. From my point of view, almost everyone is influenced by their parents, siblings or other important figures in their lifes.
However, I think social media is what influences teens the most, as people tend to vote what they think and listen, and most of the politicians are very skillful in persuading, eventhough most of the time they aren't telling the truth.
Older people are more likely to vote for their own ideas, as they have more life experience in general and they are better in discovering which is the truth and when people is lying.
In my opinion yes it is fair to say young voters are more influenced rather than someone older or an adult . A person’s mind is still developing at a young age, so they can be easily lured into voting a horrible person by someone on the internet or even someone that’s close with them .Also some young voters think that voting is a silly or funny thing , because at that age everything isn’t serious to them so they can be influenced pretty easily
I think it is not a fair concern because as the world is developing, a lot of what people choose to do, is influenced by social media and the people that surround them such as friends and family. The government needs more people to vote and could take advantage of children as they are considered; easier to manipulate as they are not fully developed and take risks more often so they will be easily influenced by their parents and social media; But this does not mean that they make voting unfair or changed.
When it comes to voting ages you would usually ask the question: “What approach is best for having a democratic and fair country" Most humans are influenced mainly by things they see or experience around them such as family, friends, social media, news, religion, upbringing and personal experiences. A lot of the time we are mainly influenced by what is liked by friends, family, celebrities and things happening online.
Personally I don't think there is a problem with having younger adolescence vote but it can be contradictory as teenagers are willing to take more risks and are led by impulsive decisions so if they were to be put in the situation of voting, they would most likely go for what there parents have chosen or who is popular online; whereas is they were actually given time to to think about who they want to vote for and why it would be the same or as equal as any adult.
I think this is not fair because we have peaple who do not watch news. This may not be applicable to all. If young people are allowed to vote it will bring good presentation. Being influenced by others is not something that affects young voters. It goes to people of all age. Young voters may use social media frequently. What matters is whether you are able to think critically about they information received. Others may think that young voters are more influenced because they have less experienced and may rely on peers. This can be true in some cases. This does not mean young voters are careless. One way to reduce this risk is being stronger in education in schools around media literacy.
I think this is a fair concern that young voters are more easily influenced. Most young voters don’t watch the news. A lot of young people use social media a lot. They might be influenced by something they found on social media. Some things that are posted as facts on social media are not facts. According to Nuurrianti Jalli, Assistant Professor of Communications at Oklahoma State University, if people keep seeing information, even if it is false, then they will start thinking it's true. Social media could be sharing information about candidates that may or may not be true. Although they might be old enough to vote, young people might be more easily influenced by social media. Social media can change the thoughts of young people.
I think this is a fair concern because young people believe what is mostly on the internet. For example, a famous content creator that they follow might say to buy or do this stuff. They are easily influenced by content creators because they don't have much experience on what is true and what is false. If it is a risk, one way to reduce it could be by limiting their screen time. When limiting screen time, they won't be able to see much of a bad influence on their phones, ipad, etc. However, others might feel that it is not a good idea because young people might get bored without their electronic devices. A solution to that problem is using their electronic devices appropriately for their age. For example, they can go on zoom meetings and talk to experts who know more about social media and ask questions about if something is true and what is false. Asking questions to the experts can get young people more of an understanding of what is true and what is not. Perhaps creating zoom meetings for young people to "meet and talk to" political candidates might make young people more aware of their political choices.
I really think that young voters are easily influence by social media, family and friends because they follow and obey what people says and what they do.Reasons why young voters are influence by social media, family and friends:1.bad example from friends -young voters from home or environment they tend to follow the role model from friends.2.parental neglect -some parent are not available for their children and this makes children feel neglect then involved in young voters.3.is peer influence -negative peer pressure can lead into political matter.political parties can also take advantage by gaining popularity on social media and among influencing young voters.THANKS.
I think this is not a fair concern because being influenced by social media, family, or friends is something that can affect all voters, not just young voters. Adults can also be influenced by information from different news outlets, algorithms on the internet, and the opinions of the people around them. Therefore, it will not be fair if young voters are targeted as being influenced.
If it is considered a risk, it can be reduced if the level of media and political knowledge is improved for young people through their school curriculum. In this way, they will be able to make independent choices.
However, it can be considered that young voters have not had as much experience as older voters and therefore may be influenced more by the trends and opinions of the people around them. However, it should not be considered as a reason for not allowing them to vote since all voters can be influenced.
I think children are likely to fall victim to peer pressure and social conformity, especially in politics for example if a child shares their political opinions with their friends who have the same views they will be stuck in an echo chamber where no one is exposed to different opinions so they never make an effort to hear different opinions from others, this would also lead the child to only consuming content that is for their political view because their algorithm will push what it thinks they believes in/will enjoy again keeping their knowledge limited to one perspective. That being said a study from The University of Texas at Dallas shows that peer pressure carries on into adulthood and that adults are still majorly affected by the opinions around them. Other studies show that younger people are significantly better at identifying the difference between statements and opinions and are able to consume biased media but see it from an unbiased point of view and therefore understand both sides of an situation. I believe this is because younger people have grown up surrounded by electronics and media, so they have better media literacy and find it easier to identify false and biased information. All this being said I believe that people of all ages can be easily influenced depending on their environments so this should not be a factor that decides if younger people should vote or not.
I think that this is true because young voters tend to believe what their peers say in order to impress their peers and to be accepted by them.Their peers also pressure them in terms of so much money like if you have their debts and it is one of your friends father who wants to be voted they pressure you until you vote for the ones they want.If it is at risk one way of reducing it could be by avoiding bad companies, means that you should not follow bad, jealous friends.
However others might feel that they should follow their friends to enter their company and not to be chased away or others might choose not to vote.
Hi Topical Talkers, I think this is a fair concern, young voters are influenced easily, but not only them, also voters from all ages are influenced by social media, family, friends or even by their religion.
I think that all voters are strongly persuade by TV, newspapers and political commentators. Although the most important platform that spreads political views and beliefs is social media, because this type of platforms are addictive. That´s why political parties use this to convice and persuase us, the algorithm repeat the same political view many times during a long period, so we get familiar with it. Furthermore, voters of all ages, not only the younger ones, are influence by the people who surrond them, such as the members of their workplace, community, religion or family. In addition, many old people often votes the same party for many years without updating recient information, so they can be uninformed and vote to someone who doesn´t represents their beliefs.
On the other hand, young people, like me, is still forming their political views. Also, young voters have less experience in politics and have to inform better about the history of many politic events. Furthermore, many young people believe manipulate information and follow political trends for social acceptance. In my opinion the most significant problem for young people if the difficulty of identying wrong information, because of the large amount of false one.
One way to reduce it could be to compare different political beliefs in various sources, so you know for what are you voting for.
I think people of all ages are equally influenced, if not older people more susceptible to such influence. I say this because times change, and young people tend to adapt more easily than older people.
Much of political advertisements happen through social media. Young people do use social media more, but this also means they know how to navigate it and have a level of media literacy when it comes to spotting fake news. Older people often struggle with this, e.g believing AI generated videos to be real. This shows that, while younger people are further exposed to such information, they aren't as influenced by it.
Now younger peoples adaptability could often be seen as just being easily influenced, but this is not always the case. Young adults are not as steadfast in the beliefs, and when presented with a valid argument, could learn to change their views rather than being stubborn. Old people are set in their ways and are unwilling to discuss. This means that they cannot adapt to the times changing as well as a 16 year old would be able to. While this may be seen as flakey on the younger part, it just shows open-mindedness and a willingness to learn. This is what we truly need, especially as voters, not just people who will not change.
On the other hand, younger people might get stuck in the rut of their social media algorithm, therefore lose exposure to other opinions. This is why we should better political education at younger ages, so they can understand both sides of the story. Otherwise, I strongly believe youth aren't as easily influenced as people think.
I think there’s a strong argument that young voters are more easily influenced, mainly because of how algorithms work on apps like TikTok and Reels. When we like a video, the app keeps showing us the same opinion over and over again. This creates an "echo chamber" where we never see the other side of the story, which makes it much easier for a clever politician or a popular influencer to change our minds without us even realising it. Also, because we haven't seen many different governments in our lifetime, we might not have the "political experience" to know when a campaign promise is actually impossible to achieve. We are more likely to vote based on an emotional video than a long, boring manifesto.
I disagree with this notion that we are more easily influenced. I think we are more skeptical than previous generations. We have grown up in a world where there is an abundance of "clickbait" and fake news, and we are naturally inclined to think whether or not what we are reading is actually true. We are taught in school to be aware of bias and to fact-check information, while some people in previous generations may simply assume something they see on Facebook is true, simply because it is on Facebook. Just because we are younger than previous generations does not mean we do not have our own values. We are deeply concerned about issues such as climate change and cost of living, as we are most impacted by these in the future.
I think this is a fair concern because many young voters spend a lot of time on social media, where information spreads very quickly and is not always reliable. Algorithms often show people content that matches their existing opinions, which can limit critical thinking. This idea links to science, especially psychology, where studies show that the teenage brain is sill developing skills like decision-making and impulse control.
If this is a risk, one way to reduce it could be better education in media literacy. In English, students learn how to analyze texts, spot bias and evaluate sources and these skills can help young voters question what they see online. Similarly, Math can help people understand statistics and graphs used in political posts. making it harder to be misled by exaggerate numbers.
However, others might feel that voters of all ages are influenced, not just young people. For example, in history, propaganda has influenced adults for centuries through newspaper, radio and television. In geography, people's political views are often shaped by where they live, such as urban or rural areas, regardless of age.
Overall. while young voters may face unique challenges because of social media, influence is not limited to them. Education and critical thinking across all age groups are more important that focusing on age alone.
From my point of view,young people are more influenced in many cases because of their world or the people around them,such as their family,friends...By the way I think that some of them have their own opinion,but the is the situation of sharing that way of thinking and then the young people are influenced by.In conclusion,I feel that young people are easily influenced in who must they vote or choose to lead them.
For me, it is a really important topic to learn how people is influenced by others opinions that their families, friends and social media gaves them.
On the one hand. As I see it, every people is influence by different ways, young people and other people. But most of them are young people because sometimes they watch a lot social media and internet and they believe they need to have the same opinion or way of thinking that most of the population. Moreover, soem of them don't know a lot of politics and they have little life experience. So, In my view, this isn't fair corcern because also older people is influence to be accepted.
On the other hand, others might feel that young people, having lived short time, have no idea in what they are thinking or saying. That can happem to some people, but not to everyone. There are children who have clear ideas! Don't you think so?
To sum up, not only young people are influenced, voters of all ages can be too.
Try not to be influenced, share your opinions, respect others, and learn new things. But don't change your perspective just because other people think so!
i would say that younger voters would be more easily influenced since we tence to like/believe what we see online. But most of the younger voters aren't dumb and they wouldn't believe all of what they seen because they grew up online and will be able to vote for what respond to their needs. Also, family and friends are going to be the biggests inflenced that going to have an impact on their choice. Most of the time, we care more of what are close ones think and they can influence are choices. Which isn't a bad thing , but if the person is bad is negative and could be a manupilative.
I sturdily think this is an extremely fair concern because young voters are more easily influenced than older voters, not because they are less intelligent, but because they grow up inside systems designed to shape their opinions. When political views are formed through viral clips and constant exposure, like trends on TikTok or Insta, it becomes much harder to slow down and think independently. I know this from personal experience, growing up in a generation constantly swayed by online trends.
If this is a rising and genuine risk, one main way to reduce it is to make media literacy a central part of education. Young voters should learn how algorithms manipulate attention, how misinformation spreads, and how emotional content can override reasoning. Without these tools, forming independent political opinions is nearly impossible and we cannot expect them to do any better!
Others might argue that older voters are influenced too, by television news, nostalgia, or their social circles. That’s valid. The difference is intensity and speed. Young voters face influence that is constant and unavoidable, making them more vulnerable to having their political views shaped before they are fully formed.
At the end of the day, if democracy depends on informed choices, we cannot let our future generation grow up unable to think for themselves.
I truly believe that young voters are more easily influenced by social media, and the biggest proof of this is AI and how dangerous it is for them. AI can create images or videos that look very realistic, but they are not real at all. The biggest problem is that these videos and images can influence young voters because they easily believe these things because they really seem real
AI can also affect their brains. If they watch too many AI videos and images, their brains will be consumed, and this is truly dangerous. To avoid this, parents should supervise young voters, monitor everything they watch, and set limits on screen time to prevent overexertion. They can also encourage them to participate in sports to distract them from their phones and anything else that consumes their brains
On the other hand, some people believe that social media does not influence young voters because it teaches them many useful things and life lessons, teaches them to use their minds, and also teaches them about technology and the use of advanced things, which are more appealing to young voters.
for me using it too much can make them addicted, and we will find it difficult to get them to stop using it.
Everyone goes on social media (most people) and there are some people who believe everything they see. I disagree with believing everything because of AI, but some of it is true and educational. Younger people believe things people say if they trust them or know them well. They want to fit in and will do anything do to so. I think this is true, but not just for younger people, also older people too. Considering that younger people spend a lot of their time on social media, some may say that their brain is “rotting” and they shouldn’t. But older people do it just as much, but I think the younger people believe more because they don’t understand enough to know if it’s true.
Thank you.
I think this is a fair concern because of rise of politicians beginning to make use of social media to influence young people’s opinions.
In the late 2010s, South Korean politicians would create “relatable” videos specifically catered to a younger audience. Studies from the UR Medicine show that teenagers for more susceptible to being influenced by the social media, peer pressure and family beliefs in politics.
If it becomes a risk, enforcing it so that politicians cannot use social media to promote themselves could be a viable option. Allowing schools to teach learners about different political parties from the age of 15 could encourage them to vote as they’d have proper information about their political parties.
Though, others might think otherwise because adults (specifically elders) are also as susceptible to social media misinformation and pressure from family beliefs that influence their decisions to voting.
I believe that younger voters are much more influenced by social media, family , friends or other people than older voters. I think that it is a fact and is true or is faired said that younger voters are more influenced, this may be or it happens because younger people don´t have the experience that older people have. Older people have been living more time than them and have seen and live some political problems or corruptions which have made them think about which political party or group they want to vote or what ideas or thoughts they want to support. I also think that young people which are influenced by others can think that if they don´t believe in the same ideas as their relatives/friends/family/partner etc, they aren´t going to fit in society. However in fact this is not true, I really believe that having different point of views and thinking in a different way, is what makes us ,as a hole, very special.
I think is a fair concern because people from a very young age has no idea about political parties so they obtain the information from the internet like from example from tik tok and instragam.They also obtain the information from their family or friends,and thats no a good idea because people have different ideas from each other and also some information from the internet is not true.If it is a risk,one way to reduce it could be prohibiting internet to young peolple and don't search this personal information with anyone else.However,other might feel that its better that young peolpe vote,because as there would be more votes there will be more possibilites that other party get out.
I think it's true young voters are easily influenced as they belive that everything said by someone they respect is true.
Nowadays young people are really influenced by social media because there are influencers which became their idols so they tend to agree with all their ideas,also in a group of friends where they need to be accepted the social pressure makes them to change their ideology only for feeling a one of the group.As young people have shart time in life things as things as this might influence them because they don't know yet who is convinient for them to vote.Young people are afraid of being margined in this society because of pressure in their surrounding circle.This can be change by themself not been scared of the society and giving time to develop their own opinion.
i think that sixteen year old's should not be allowed to vote because they may be easily influenced by someone online or they could agree with someone in their family without actually knowing how serious the vote is and what is may mean. even tho some sixteen year old's are very mature they could still be quite clueless as they are new to the voting system and vote for someone no one wants then people may get angry.
I agree and disagree at the same time.But my explanation for this is how younger people can be influenced by social media,friends and families but the younger people can take initiative and choose the leader that they choose fits.
For me, young people are easily influenced. They are most likely to be influenced from the social media platforms. Such as Tiktok, Instagram, Twitter, etc. The most popular platform is TikTok, almost every young people or teenagers have downloaded this platform. A lot of people have been making videos about global issues that are currently happening in the world. Poverty, hunger, crime, climate change, etc are the most common topic. Young people after watching videos with that topics can be influenced and motivated to help people around the world. Which makes people that are currently having a bad life can be helped by these young people that are willing to help and make the world and future become better.
i agree because people who are young are more influenced on social media.This is because most young people are on social media most of the time s it s there primary source.Also,young people may see there favorite celebrities points and agree with it just because they are fan of them.young people will also agree with there family and friends as they are a big part of their lives and will have a big influence of them
i agree with this because young people can be influenced by social media.This is because people at a young age are mainly on social media and this is there main source.Also they can be influenced by celeberitites they like and families because they area massive part of there life.
I agree with this statement, young people are usually more prone to misinformation and is easily infuenced by everything someone said. It is abit ironic since young people are the ones who has always lived with technology and should be the most tech savvy and cautious people, but because the life we know has always been the internet---we rely on other peoples opinion from social media more than even our family. We cant have an original political view because we are always affected by what we consume. The goverment in my country seem to know this and is using this to manipulate the new young voters set to vote in 2029. A popular educational content creator in Indonesia who has more than 10+ million followers exposed that he was offered 150 million rupiah (+-9000 USD) to upload content for the goverment during the heated protests againsts the economic frustrations and a proposed hike in housing subsidies for members of the parliament (August 2025)---which is known to not even care for the people of Indonesia. Just to picture how severe this situation was, a food deliveryman was run over by a brigade car who was supposed to keep the protest peaceful, public facilities in multiple cities were set on fire, and there were multiple other deaths caused by the protests. The goverment knew that his platforms is mostly followed by young people, and tried to get us to be symphatetic to the goverment. Thankfully, he declined and exposed the truth. This was a jab to the heart---knowing that the goverment thought they could manipulated us young people shows that this statement is true.
Thank you for using other pieces of information to support your view charming_wombat.
I think this is not fair because people under the voting age can be silly with the voting
and adults are more senceable because they know the write thing to vote for and it's
not fair for over conturys because they mite not get the chance to vote and you should n't
copy eney one because it's your chose and you mite get it wrong.
I think young people are n't fluent a nuf because adults are way more smarter and know
more words in there vocabularey, young people can make lots of mistakes and children can cuse
caoss and people could think why are nine year old aloud to vote even know there not sixteen.
Yes, without a doubt. Young voters are influenced PROBABLY because they are still figuring stuff out. They get bombarded with vices like tiktoks, memes, friends and vibes.Due to these influences, they sometimes get pushed by people who know how to manipulate opinions through slick campaigns or interest groups, some information is good, but it can backfire if gotten from unreliable sources.There's also the challenge of peer pressure that influences young voters. To be frank, being young in the voting booth reveals ones vulnerability, it is raw and open, because of this, influence sets in uninvited.
I think this is not a fair concern, because young voters are not easily influenced, they are just very stubborn. If a young person believes something, especially after arguing about it with friends or seeing it online, it is very hard to change their mind. From my experience, young people like to feel independent and hate being told what to think, even by family. If stubbornness becomes a problem, one way to reduce it could be teaching young people how to listen to different opinions without taking it personally. However, others might feel that young voters are influenced because they spend a lot of time on social media, but honestly, adults are just as influenced, they just call it “experience”.
I would love to add that politicians fix the country or most part of the country with smiles but with evil intentions for the country for when they get the post they have being looking for.
Most times they rig the boxes where the voters cast their votes, most times they bribe judges or maybe hire someone to get the job done for them.
Because of this young voter loose interest in voting and are either forced or encouraged by elders to vote for a leader or a representative.
Could you please explain why you think that politicians have evil intentions?
The reason is that on most occasions they manipulate the people, and then when they get elected, they use their position for their benefit and do not really do anything for the growth of the country. They are corrupt because most times they use their money to bribe the electoral officials, and that is how they get themselves in that position. So that is why I see them as evil.
Thank you
The reason is that on most occasions they manipulate the people, and then when they get elected, they use their position for their benefit and do not really do anything for the growth of the country. They are corrupt because most times they use their money to bribe the electoral officials, and that is how they get themselves in that position. So that is why I see them as evil.
Thank you
I think this is a fair concern because young voters' decisions to support specific candidates are supported by the influenced from friends,family and most especially influence gotten from social media.
Me to be sincere the influence from social media has done a lot to me and my present generation and that is why social media is one of the main influence that could make young voters to vote for people they never plan to vote for.
My solution to this is that the people voting should be asked by the people in charge of the election thier reason for voting for one of the candidates i hope i have inspired you with this word of mine.
i think that young voters are easily influenced because they accept any information and are incapable of making decisions.
regarding they young age political ideas are still forming and this can be influenced by other reasons such as misinformation, when they get information for any source they tend to believe it very without putting in place critical thinking which can lead to influenced decision.this can lead to riged elections.
I think that younger people are influenced to vote people who they don’t want to vote by family and friends .i also think they feel pressured by family and friends to vote different political party’s because Ethel feel like if they don’t vote that party then it will be letting their family down .also younger people need to focus on school and the pressure of who to vote could build up a lot of stress so they would just ask their parent who to vote could.
Being young doesn't mean you are decievable anyone can be brainwashed into doing something there are just different ways to do it. W common way both old and young people are deceived is by the influence of a trusted or respected person.
Sometimes a young person doesn't know who to vote or how it is going to effect them so they just follow what everyone else says especially if it's a well known influencer. This can be a problem as it makes it so that lots of people won't even think about who to vote and the pros and cons of every person especially because lots of college students already have lots on their mind and can't bother doing intense research but on the other hand older people have plenty of time and can do the research required to make a justified vote.
To conclude it doesn't matter if you're 18 or 81 to be able to be brainwashed it just depends on how the political parties figure out how to trick you to vote for them.
I totally agree with you phenomenal fern and i believe teachers should teach students about political awareness before being able to vote in order for the young people to have a complete idea of what they need to think to vote.
I think this is not fair judgement. Children are not the only ones that are easily influenced, people just make this assumption because of where they fit into society. In all people's choices regardless of age there are always underlying influences whether people are aware of them or not. Social media plays a big role in shaping how people see the world, other people, countries, religions etc. Social media is also ever present in every person's life whether you agree with it or not. Obviously teenagers tend to be the more online and are exposed to lots of different kinds of information that influence their thoughts but this doesn't excuse the fact that people older than them are also on these platforms, reading and potentially believing misinformation . People often make decisions based on their circumstances, their families and their friends. Humans are naturally social creatures and love the idea of fitting in and following the crowd, which is why people rarely speak up when an injustice has occurred if it doesn't affect them. Humans are wired to gravitate towards norms, media and social cues that often influence behavior and thought patterns.
Children should not be singled out for being too weak and easily influenced. Its not an age problem is a maturity and media exposure problem.
Yes I agree with young voters are more influence d as tend to believe anything said someone who respected. because young people are many in Kenya known as generation Z the vote for a leader who they want and they remove any time they want it
the reason why I think young voters are easily influenced is because of social media and the parents can direct them into voting too and in times like this the adults bribe the kids into voting and the kids aren't mature enough to make their own decisions and vote but I'd say that turning 18 to vote is just fine not too old and not too young.
younger voters are often more likely to be influenced because they have not yet developed strong, lifelong habits of supporting one specific political party. since they are still learning about how the government works, their opinions can change quickly when they encounter new ideas or persuasive arguments. they get the most of their news from social media platforms, where algorithms show specific videos that can easily change their point of view. This group is also very concerned with fitting in so they might follow a certain political trend just because their friends or famous influencers are supporting it. Because they have not lived through as many elections as older adults, they might not recognize when a candidate is making promises that are difficult to keep. Political campaigns use this to their advantage by creating digital advertisements that target the specific interests and emotions of young people. this makes them a key group for politicians who want to gain new supporters through catchy slogans and social media challenges. mostly the combination of a lack of experience and a high amount of time spent inline makes younger voters a very flexible part of populations.
I think that younger voters are more easily influenced because they usually do not yet have their own established opinions and beliefs about important matters. They more often then not rely on the opinions and beliefs of people they respect, their friends and influencial people on social media to understand and decide about important matters.
Some people might think that this is stereotipical, and yes all people can be influenced, but the malleable minds of young people are more likely to be influenced when it comes to political matters and the situation surrounding voting.
Yesi do think that younger people do get easier influenced because we only watch people that we think have a good opinion and thinks the same as us. But i think it is not just the younger people that the media has influenced it is also the older generations that can also be easily influenced because they are more naive because they didn't grow up with the media having such a big impacted on them,they are more prone to believing things that we know are false. The media also has a big influence on us because in this stage of our life it is very important,as we grow older it wil still have an impacted on us but not such a big one as it has know.
I think that young voters are easily influenced because they might see someone on social media that they like watching or someone around them that they might admire and if that person that they admire says that they really like this person the the other person is more than likely to say the same thing. There is also the fact that there is more people on social media more than ever know and every little they watch they end up spreading it or reposting and then it turns into a trend and because most people just want to fit in they might end up saying and doing the stuff that is apart of that trend. So that's why I say that young voters are easily influenced.
Yes I agree that younger voter are influenced by social media because they cheated, bribed and brainwashed by social media and they believe what social media says and do because they lack wisdom, proper gaudance and knowledge. Younger voters this day they follow social media platform.
I don't really think that it is a fair concern. This is because age doesn't determine whether someone is easily swayed to one side because of influences. What determines whether someone is easily influenced is dependent on their awareness in the political world. For every easily influenced young voter, there is another older voter who is also just as easily influenced by their family, friends, facebook, or by anything they consume. Instead of saying that young voters shouldn't be allowed to vote because they are easily influenced, we should face the fact that anyone can be influenced by misinformation. We should rather focus on ensuring the information that anyone can access is true and unbiased.
I believe that it is true that younger voters are more easily influenced because they are the ones that are usually on social media and they can get this information from their friends. Also, I can believe this information. Then they may vote for someone that was doing the wrong thing and they would have been misled. Young voters will not like it if they were left out or not fitting in so they will try to go with the other people. That might not be their opinion and then they might get sad because that is not really their voice being heard. There might be too much pressure on them to choose their vote . This is why I think that younger voters are more easily influenced.
I think this is not a fair concern since influence is not only related to age. It can be related to both experience and the culture/environment in which this influence takes place. Young voters may feel out of place as they navigate the political landscape and try to find a political ideology which they stand for. This feeling of being out of place is exactly what makes them more receptive to ideas. However, I would argue that voters of all ages are subject to influence. In older voters, this may manifest as them being blindly loyal to the party that they have always been supporting or never acknowledging any news sources outside of their own net (i.e. Fox News for conservatives, CNN for liberals) which results in them not gaining any new insight on their ideology because all they hear is praise. These news channels for older voters are exactly like social media for younger voters, the only difference is one is more modern, and thus, logically, has more people using it.
However, others might feel that younger voters have a unique vulnerability regarding influence. Younger people have social media platforms with dedicated algorithms to show them content which they agree with. Even AI has got in its fair share of controversies due to the fact that it is too reaffirming and will agree with anything you say even if it leads to harm. My counterpoint is this:
Isn't having seperate news channels for seperate ideologies already algorithmic? Never mind the fact that older people tend to spend their time on Facebook and Instagram which have algorithms like any other online platform.
I think this is true because most young people vote for their trusted social media influencers, which makes them easily influenced and leads them to believe everything their social media says, friends, and after all of that, they are still young kids, still learning from the world, and with their parents.
Young people are surrounded by opinions all the time, especially online, so it can be hard to tell where their own views end and others begin. Older voters may stick to the same opinions because they've believed them for many years, not because they've thought about them recently. Watching the same news channel every day can slowly shape opinions without people questioning it. Everyone likes to think they're hard to influence, but most people are affected by the people and social media around them.
The real issue is whether voters question what they hear, not how old they are.
Hi i am persistent drum from Grece and i strongly disagree with the people saying that young people should not be allowed to vote.First of all lots of older people are misinformed about politics .Also i saw a lot of comments saying that young people are inexpierienced but if they are not allowed to vote how will they gain experience?Lastly i believe that everyone should be given the chancee to vote from a certain age and that voting is not only about the people with more experience and knowledge.
Honestly, the idea that young voters are uniquely 'influenceable' feels like a bit of a historical myth. Every generation is shaped by their environment; older voters were
'influenced' by a handful of T.V networks and local papers for decades-that's just a smaller, quieter echo chamber.
If anything, being digital natives means we have higher media literacy. We're the ones who see the fact-checks and the 'community notes' in real-time. While people worry about 'hot cognition' (impulsive peer pressure), voting is actually 'cold cognition'-a private, slow decision made in a booth. At 16 or 18, that logic is already fully developed.
Maybe it's not that we're more easily led, but that we're the first generation whose political 'coming of age' is recorded in public. Is it really 'influence,' or is it just that we're seeking answers from peers because the traditional political system hasn't started speaking our language yet. In the end, the debate isn't about 'who is influenced faster,' it's actually about the 'collapse of the information monopoly.' Previous generations were programmed by one or two sources, and that was called 'stability.' Now, young people are exposed to vast, diverse sources, and that's called 'influence.' The truth is, young people aren't easier to lead; they are just harder to predict because they think outside the traditional box that politicians designed decades ago.
I think this is true as many teenagers have social media and this can influence and change what they actually think. In most cases the media only shows one side of the story when trying to influence people to vote. If most people follow only the one side of the story there might be a pressure to believe it and believe what the media is saying as everyone believes it.
I do think that young people are more easily influenced than anyone else. As their exposure to reliable resources of news is very limited these days, as if listening to the news is now considered very " weird" or " old fashioned." Therefore, they unintentionally stumble upon loads of misconceptions and misinformation as they scroll through social media platforms. Personally, I believe that they HAVE to get affected or believe the tonnes of false information out there, because simply, that is the only resource they obtain, as they aren't informed about the whole truth from a trustworthy channel like BBC for instance, they have nothing to compare the false information they encounter to, that is why I believe that they are almost obligated to be affected by what they view online. So, Yes; I do believe young people are more easily influenced.
If it is a risk, one way we could reduce how easily influenced young people are by what they encounter mostly online, then I suggest that there should be applications for online lectures by experienced and trusted experts or professors for example, these applications should be dedicated to young audiences who struggle on how to avoid being a victim of the chaotic and misleading side of the internet, there could be free 1-month trials, and if one is interested in completing the course, they could simply register for a longer period of time. I think this is an excellent way of teaching young people how to really express their opinions and how to vote responsibly in elections, without following any popular or trendy news.
I truly reckon that younger voters are easily influenced by everything around them, mainly social media. As when a younger person sees information that they may not recognise or be informed about , they will likely believe what is being said , even if it's misinformation , as from family , friends or even strangers.
Older voters on the other hand are likely more educated and experienced on various topics. Older people also tend not to believe information easily, as they take in reconsideration the every word being said, some youngsters might not focus as much as an older person would.
To conclude, yes, I think that younger voters might be somehow easily influenced from everything around them, as they aren't educated and experienced as older voters , considering the age difference, meaning that older voters aren't influenced easily and might reconsider even the tidiest decisions, making their decisions overall more accurate and precise than youngsters.
Young voters get more easily influenced in a political sense than older voter who have more experience in the system. I say this because as you get older your cognitive ability to make decisions independently increases. As a sixteen year old you are heavily influenced by everything around you. Whether that's friends family or social media, at a younger age you simply don't want to be independent yet. Older people definitely are able to make designs more independently, which is more what they truly believe. They are able to do this because by the time you should be able to vote at which is 18 then you are able to be smarter about your decisions, and you have enough experience and done enough research to make an informed decision about who you think should have power in their daily life. In conclusion social media and the influence from others is too powerful for 16 year olds to vote independently which could have a negative toll on democracy.
To me, I feel as if the younger generation is not "easily influenced." They have grown up with technology around them and most likely experienced being persuaded online at some point before the voting age. This will then set them up to know that they are being manipulated or influenced. Also, I would like to point out that those two are very different; manipulation is a dishonest and underhanded way of trying to control others, and influencing is the indirectly affecting others' points of view. According to Harvard Kennedy School, the younger generation is more likely to break family ties to political parties. For example, a family has been voting conservative their entire life, but their son decided the liberals have his views better, so he chose to vote for them. Even if this is going to cause family drama, the younger generation is still paving their own paths and making their own decisions. Sadly, online, you often see only the bad side of influences online, but sometimes these trends can be helpful. Overall, I believe that everyone exposed to the internet is at risk of being influenced or even manipulated.
Hi everyone, I'm smart_snow from Vancouver, BC i hope all of you are having a great day. I strongly believe that young voters are more easily influenced for many reasons. To start, the young generation has had a lot of AI influence in their early life wich is a probem because when these younger people see someone they respect post something political, they are more likly to be swayed into believing that side of the argument. According to rochester.edu, the human brain does not fully develop until you reach the age of 25. This shows that young voters' brains are not fully ready to make a choice this big and know what's best for themselves and their community. During people's younger years, there is a lot of political stuff going around, and many young voters can feel that if they do not vote for who their friends vote for, they are letting them down and making them upset. When a young adult has so much pressure and so much power with their votes, they can feel left out or uncomfortable if their beliefs don't resonate with their peers wich can result in them being swayed to vote for who the people around them vote for. Political parties can take advantage of these young voters and build up a social media page that slowly makes its way to the young voters who are unsure of who to vote for, which can gain many votes by swaying people slowly to their side through the social media algorithm. For these reasons i believe that young voters are more easily swayed by their peers.
I think it's a fair concern because nowadays, youngsters are addicted to social media and they use it almost for everything. Social media makes the youngsters to blindly trust them, just because of their fame and influence. However, some may say that it's just a entertainment package, but it creates a useless impact addicts the young minds to take it seriously. In this Gen-Beta generation, it has become common to see youngsters checking their mobile screens first thing in the morning instead of greeting their parents. That is why I believe social media has the power to brainwash youngsters, even influencing something as important as voting. For example, in our state, recently one actor has came into politics and his fans, especially youngsters supports him blindly without any experience or reason. This is what is called, transforming fans into voters which include lack of thinking.
Social media addiction among youngsters is no longer just a local issue; it is a global phenomenon.In countries like the Philippines and Brazil, youth political opinions are heavily shaped by viral reels, influencers, and celebrity popularity rather than policies or experience.This global pattern clearly shows that social media does not just entertain, it educates, influences, and sometimes manipulates. According to me, When popularity replaces reasoning, democracy becomes a show and followers becomes voters!
I think this is a fair concern because it is scientifically proven that if a person's prefrontal cortex is not yet developed they might be more easily swayed by others. I learned from an article from the National Library of Medicine that the prefrontal cortex develops through the mid-20s and helps with longterm thinking and rational decision making. In adolescence, young voters might rely more on emotional than critical thinking. The adolescent brain is more responsive to rewards and more flexible; therefore, they are more shaped by their environment, such as friends or family. One way to reduce this risk could be more education about peer pressure and standing firm in one’s beliefs. However, another viewpoint is that young voters can elect who they truly think should be president independently. Young people are open-minded and motivated by issues like climate change, education and gender disparities, which directly impact their futures. Furthermore, age doesn’t define an individual's political understanding, many are willing to consider others’ perspectives. I read in New Science of Adolescence that there are two types of thinking in a young person’s mind. One is hot cognition, where a young person is in an emotional stage and thinks impulsively, usually in public settings like peer pressure at a party. Cold cognition, logical, analytical thinking used in quiet, low stress environments. When young people are at voting booths, the environment is organized, and quiet, revealing they are most likely using cold cognition while voting and making more independent choices.
Based on real social and psychological factors within the given context, I believe that young voters aren't easily influenced by social media, family or friends. From my perspective, the reasons why young voters aren't easily influenced are as follows;
Firstly, young voters are much more skilled at verifying information compared to others. As today's youth have grown up on digital platforms, they don't confine themselves within the maze of information. They are able to verify the authenticity of information easily; as a result, they are less likely to be influenced by false data.
Secondly, youth voters tend to maintain in independent thinking. Rather, they adhering to one-sided party ideologies, they are more concerned with specific issues and policies.
Thirdly, the modern education system and easy access to information have fostered a questioning mindset among young people. They feel comfortable making decisions based on evidence. Consequently,, they develop the self-reflective attitudes and possess strong critical thinking skills.
.Thank you.
I do not think it is entirely fair to say that young voters are more easily influenced than older voters. While younger people may spend more time on social media, voters of all ages are influenced by their surroundings, including family, friends, and the news they consume. Older voters can also be affected by long-held beliefs or biased media sources. If influence is a concern, one way to reduce it is by improving media literacy and critical thinking skills for everyone. However, some may argue that younger voters lack experience, which makes them more vulnerable.
I am very much against lowering the voting age, I would rather raise it to 25. Young people are too easily manipulated and can be manipulated easily. I think we should raise the age to 25 years old because as teenagers and young people we are not informed enough. Yes, it can be applied, but I don't think it's necessary. As young people, we have too much to do with school or college to pay attention to it. I understand that most people would disagree with me, but why should we neglect ourselves now when we can enjoy our youth? Thanks in advance to anyone who answers.
The short answer is yes
But it is not as 1 dimensional as that, us young people are unpredictable, some of us are very stuborn and not influenced as easly, but most of us are very naïve.
The easiest way to influence us is to appeal to our interests, politics have already embeded themselves into social media, therefore making it easier to influence us in ways they see fit. They can't influence us through conventional media anymore so they use influencers to, well, influence us.
But there are also influencers that help us in critical thinking and in avoiding propaganda.
All in all, younger people can be easily influenced, and we are esspecially prone to being "bribed" with fake promises.
I wouldn't necessarily say that younger voters are more easily influenced. Those who put in the effort to do SOME research on the current state of the country can be just as informed as their elders. They would be better at differentiating AI generated media than someone who is older. Most people are smart enough to not blindly listen to an influencer who knows nothing about politics. Will younger voters actually put in the effort? That's the bigger issue, most of them including myself just wouldn't be interested in politics.
There really is no way to encourage them to do some research and vote on a good leader.
Please feel free to lmk if you agree or disagree I'd love to go through your replies.
I think this is a fair concern because many more young people are on social media than younger voters. This means that it is easier to get into the younger peoples minds and place views that may be unfair or unjust. The issue is that many young people will believe what most influencers say or what they read online. If it is a risk, one way to reduce it could be to ban using social media during political elections to spread thier ideology. However, others might feel that it is not just young voters because those in the older generations could potentially not be able to decipher the facts from the fiction.
I think it is a fair concern, because humans have evolved to learn from whats around them. That instinct to believe what people around are saying remains until later ages, and its still present in teenagers. We have evolved to believe what people around us are saying (especially our parents, when we're younger) and remember and emulate it (the Bobo doll experiment). Thus, many young voters will surely just follow what their parents have taught them to believe. When this happens, voting isnt as much about what 16 year olds believe, but about what their parents made them believe. Thats not democracy anymore.
Another reason is that teenagers and young adults dont have their brains fully developed, meaning that they have worse decision-making and executive functions abilities(Ferguson et. al., 2021).
If it is a risk, one way to reduce it would be to update the education system into fostering critical thinking and democratic education when this happens, kids are taught to think for themselvesm
However, others might feel that if a citizen has a stake in the elections, then they should be able to vote. Otherwise, they are just suffering the consequences without a say in the matter. Plus, elections are now largely based on social media and tech. Thats where most of the campaigning happens and, if someone is technologically illiterate, they may not be able to discern between fake news and facts. This is especially true for seniors, who largely dont have the tech skills necessary to cross reference news sources or detect AI generated videos, so they may be even easier to influence.
i do think young voters are more easily influenced. They can get easily influenced by social media trends, friends, society, and fomo. Most of young voters have little experience of politics. They rarely watch news and rather watch short, non-detailed videos. Young voters also feel fomo when a political party is gaining traction.
I think this is a fair concern because younger people are more easily to get influenced. If it is a risk, one way to reduce it could be to increase voting age. Also a solution can be that near elections political views ,from unknown users, should be banned. Social media can affect our lives in a critical way so they can do it with the political views as well. This is why younger voters can be affected more easily through social media .
I think young voters are more easily influenced than older people. Young people often agree with their families or friends because they have similar opinions. Also they tend to agree with people they like. Thats why they are influenced by influencers. Young people spend so much time on social media. So an opinion that is supported from many may influence them too.
I think this is a fair concern because younger people have not formed an opinion on political issues and they are more easily influenced by social media. If it is a risk, one way to reduce it could be to increase the voting age . However, others might feel that the elder ones can be influenced more easily by social media because they are not that familiar with social media.
I think that younger voters they believe everything said that person is influenced in social media .Because young people they dont have experience about life, and they brainwashed but I feel that this is more common among young. people learning because young people are still forming their opinions on politics.
I agree with the fact that young people vote in accordance with their families' political orientation and are generally influenced by external aspects. Young voters are more prone to being under the political influence of their social circle, because their political orientation is vague and premature, while their vulnerability towards topics that regard ideology and morality is exposed to political contol and propaganda.
I also believe that young people are more easily influenced by social media, because of the rapid rise of the use of technology especially in this age group, who are more used to that system. Moreover, it is highly likely that young people get under the influence of their familiar and social circle, thus shape their political opinions based on the ideas that overwhelm them on a daily basis.
Well, I partially agree with you. What of all the young people who don't have access to social media, but are still getting influenced in one way or another? The matter isn't just about what they see online but also what the young people see as we interact with our environment. Their peers can influence them by just playing and having conversations with them. Some of these conversations might actually become their belief in years to come. I actually think that young people's mind can be easily manipulated but not because of the lack of knowledge, but lack of experience to really understand the environment.
However, others may say that technology is rapidly increasing and dominant in the world today. That is actually why people tend to ignore the fact that even the slightest conversations with people may influence young people's life. They spend their time trying to curb the way technology influencing young people often forgetting the physical interaction that also happens. What happens to people who are influenced by physical interactions? How do we prevent it? How does it affect young people? These are the questions that are meant to be raised.
I personally believe that young voters are influenced easily because their opinion can change from people that are really close to them. Also politics arent easy.For that reason teens should create a general opinion of what each politic can do to improve their country.Furthermore young voters are afraid that they will not fit in a social group if they have different thoughts about certain things such as education and healthcare.
On the other hand they must be really careful so they dont trust anything they see on social media.That can lead to misinformation because on most platforms fake news are the main content as they attract attention.
In my opinion, this is a fair concern because the rise of social media has changed a lot the way people think. Especially young people, are more likely to be influenced through social media because most of the teens are immature and spend the biggest part of the day online.Also they don't have as much experience on voting as older people, so it is normal to get affected. However, everyone can be influenced by social media, because the are accessible to everyone ,not just young people.It is a place where everybody can share their opinion with others and discuss with them.
If it is a risk ,one way to reduce it is education, teens should learn about those topics in order to be able to think critically and as a result not being influenced be others.
However others might think that only teens can be influenced.
I believe that voters of all ages can be influenced by social media,family and friends. When it comes to younger voters I think that
it is logical to ask for advice from family or friends or search information on social media. They are mature enough to think critical
and make their own conclusion without being blindly influenced by social media and others. Younger people are revolutionary and responsible for their own future, they also are aware of propaganda and able to avoid it .
I personally believe that this concern is fair beacuse teenagers don't have clear and strong philosophy and they are not able to have a critical thinking to distinguish reality. In social media there is propaganda , sometimes they consider political views hereditary. Friends might be more authentic in their political views , but again thay are influenced from somewhere on the internet. We live in technological era, in which our opinions are formed by that.
In shcool should be added a lesson about new techonoligal era, their laws and way of thinking.
However , others might feel that everyone has a clear critical thinking.
In my opinion i think this is half true . The reason why i think that , it's because as some people say everyone can be influenced by others but kids are influenced the most considering the absence of critical thinking and the correct management of information which is very important . Also older people have much more experience in the procedure of voting and know when the candidates are saying the truth or or not , so their vote is more objective.
In my opinion, everyone can be influenced regardless of their age. Everyone tends to believe that young people are more likely to vote because of other opinions and social media, however because of the information social media provides these days, which can be both true or fake, they can see more point of views in one problem, for example many people are prejudiced about what is happening in Gaza, especially older people because they don't have many other source of information like young people. In addition, elder people have other views and that's because they grew up in different times. That's why they usually are really proud and narrow minded about their opinions which leads to them misunderstanding the intent behind specific news and specifically political views and programs of each government (a very good example is what is happening in America). Some support a specific government without recognizing the lack of morals. Thus, it is obvious that both older and younger people can be influenced by the media, family or friends and it is wrong to believe that young people are more likely to be influenced. Many people would say that young people don't have experience, but we have seen how corrupted some governments are which have been elected by both young AND older people. So experience can be quite helpful, but if you don't have critical thinking then experience is basically useless.
I think this is a fair concern. People under 17 should not be allowed to vote. Althought there is a variety in the population and each age have different requests, young people are mostly influenced by social media and sometimes by there peers. Because of their young age they are not able tο form an opinion by themselves so they fell into misleading information and propaganda.
I do believe teens these days including me are influenced heavily by social media , which are used as a method to launch political propaganda that targets our age group. Also , I'm sure most of us have not formed a political opinion and might easily believe misleading pieces of information. Lastly, family can be a big factor on changing our voting options and because they are more mature that us so I can safely say that most of the time we think we should agree with them out of respect.
It isn't really fair to say young voters are influenced easily, more like influenced differently.
Young people are more exposed to social media and peer opinions, which can shape views very quickly. Older voters, however, are often influenced by traditional media, long-held beliefs, or family and party loyalties. Those influences can be just as strong.
So influence affects all ages. The key difference isn’t age, but where people get their information and how critically they evaluate it.
I think younger voters are easily influenced because in social media, they have someone they like or respect and some people will follow it. That makes politicians take advantages from young people by gaining more popularity to influenced young people to trust them. Young people are afraid of not fitting with the people surrounding and society, that can make young people more easily to be influenced by what others think. They also have little experience about life and doesn’t really know about what’s the best for society. Some young people doesn’t really care about votes and society, they just want to fit in with their circle and just follow them even though they know that aren’t right. This is only my opinion, however some people think that younger voters are not easily influenced but they just have their own perspective that is different from other people and it’s not wrong because people have the right to give opinion and I respect it.
I believe this is true. Young people do get easily influenced by social media. Study shows that kids at the age of 10 undergo a ''fundamental shift'' in the brain causing them to seek more social rewards. Needing more approval from their peers. Platforms like Tiktok, youtube, snapchat and instagram changes the mind of the younger users. Example, if a kid watches multiple videos of an influencer telling how Genghis Khan was doing good they would grow up believe that without knowing the whole story. But how about family and friends? Well, its the same for the social media if a kid grows up being told that school is bad they will start to hate it more and more.
However, some may find it a better use than learning it in school. Kids would learn things they won't learn in school like applying for a job or how to pay taxes. This stuff can't be learned unless you find out to late causing stress. Kids also do get their news off of social media influencers like daily mail and Dylan Page are good examples of how gets get their news nowadays.
But how would this effect the voting issue people are worried about? The thing is younger kids will grow up. Since the internet is a vast place they will find themselves in a place they never been and find more information that would completely changed the way they thought about it. Voting is people opinion on things. If they are serious about voting for a certain politic they should research not just go off someone's words alone.
I think young voters would be influenced more because and tend to believe in adds and tends to believe in everything they see like in a country when some people started a campaign and it ended up with only 40% of people voting and the other 60% didn’t even vote and what the young people did influenced other people to join in and it ended up with only little people joining.
I strongly believe that young people are easily influenced this is because youths of nowadays are credulous in nature; they easily believe what they are told even if they are not fully convinced about it.
Due to the fact that youths lack experience, they are very naive especially towards social media influencers and peers this can also be caused due to the fact that they lack or have little experience and have little knowledge about political reality.
Also young people do not make choices due to conviction but due to popularity and majority.
For me, I think young voters are influenced because some people hear only what their parents and family members say or who they think is the right person
I agree with the topic at hand because young people can be influenced in many ways like for example peer pressure from friends voting, your parents want you to vote for their candidate, social media, religious background of the person, tribe of the person etc. And this can serve as a bad thing because they do not know the background story of the candidate they are voting for and this may lead to corruption in country, poor governance, lack of trust of the citizens, lack of vision, decline in economic growth, internal conflict etc. And that is why I
Why I said that some politicians have evil intension during my last comment was because, in most countries political parties exists but is not recognized by the constitution, still most countries operates like that, for example my country practice this type of party system in the countries that operate the type of government where they citizens elect their own government, the candidates that are to be elected are supposed to be known by the country or some part of the country with money to buy the form for the election.
I would love to finish by saying that when the politician that fixed roads and built bridges gets elected the y exploit the country and use peoples money for personal gain. making young voters discouraged and unable to vote for their leaders.
Well I actually agree that it's fair to say young voters are easily influenced because, young people spend more time on their phones or with their friends, and during this period they engage in conversations where they all share their ideas and views on different things and then ends up by one party believing the other and so on. So these beliefs are what the use when it comes to making decisions on something.
Unlike our elders and parents who actually bring out time to listen to the news and make research on things they feel unsure of. So, we young voters are actually more influenced.
I think that younger voters are more influenced by social media , friends and family .
First of all what is social media ?
It is like an app where information and ideas are shared , examples are Tiktok, Facebook and so on. It is one of The reasons why younger voters are being influenced and distracted on what they are doing. These days you mostly see young people on an app which have all this interesting information without paying attention to their environment and normally 100% of people globally are watching tiktok also normally display the attitude like doing the wrong thing at the right time.
Then lets move to family . Family can influence younger ones through their behaviours ,For example disobeying your parents when they see you doing those things they will feel like it is the right things,
The lastly friends are one of the cause of one going to social media because they influence you to go to social media .
HOW TO REDUCE IT :
1. Avoiding doing the wrong thing
2. Not being influenced social media.
THANK YOU.
Yes, I agree that young voters are more likely to be influenced because of their continous development to maturity.
young voters can be easily be influenced because of their young and fresh brains which are in development they have no yet tasted what life is about, young voters can be easily influenced because of they are still immature, still thinking childish and developing accademically and can be influenced emotionally and psychologically.
Another point of view, is that young people are still wanting belongings instead of contentment with what they have and trying to work to achieve what they don't possess. With this they can be easily influenced into the bad-side e.g stealing because they do not have what they have stolen from the owner or might have, but want more. Instead for walking upright into your education to afford what you never possess.
in addition, young voters can be easily influenced both positively and negatively and because of the aspect of immaturity absent in them, they can take risks of voting someone illegally or picking the candidate you didn't plan for.
In conclusion,
Young voters are more likely to be influenced because of their state of immaturity as well as brain building and development and other conditions that affect them to be influenced.
Thanks for reading.
A very solid debating question there, but I believe that the world around young voters leads them to more misinformation, from maybe family, friends, and social media, because all these 3 links have their own justifiable causes, which may lead to younger people relying more on the views of others, because all these are double-sided, either valid or not, rumours tend to follow, which leads to divided attention, confusing, leading to vulnerable minds as those of young people to be guided into these beliefs, influencing the whole system.
It’s a little more harder than a simple yes or no. Young voters are influenced in different ways than older voters—and often more open to change.
Young voters can easily be influenced, but they can change young minds more easily and they’re more open and flexible.
Okay, let's see it like this, Young voters are still figuring things out, so they still have much gap before anyone can criticize anyone. The reason why young voters seem more influenced is because of they spend more time on social media, or listen to their friends or influencers
I think this is a fair concern because the young voters' can actually be influenced easily by the three basic sources of influence in my country Nigeria which are
1.Family
2.Friends
3.Social media
I want to tell you today why family is among the three main influence because they are related to you by blood so you normally believe hat they say.
I think that when you believe in your family to the point that they influence you is not advisable and it might be one of the problems in our society today.
One way to reduce it could be by asking citizens their purpose for voting for one of the campaigners in the election this might be stressful but it should be tryed .
I personally think that young voters do have strong opinions too, as i read the comments for more mature voters a lot of them seem to agree that older people are qualified to vote, as they are more mature, and i think its the same applied to younger voters, as growing adults, they have their own opinions, fresher perspective. I myself have been in discussions with my peers about politics, as we see it on our social media, we each shared our own opinions and realised the difference in our opinions, not by the influence of the media, or by social surroundings, but by our own opinions from the situations were going through. I think that teens tend to notice more than adults, were more free and imaginative from the harshes of life , so we have a different prespective when we see candidate pairs then adults.
Some people believe that young voters are easier to influence because we spend a lot of time on social media. The information on social network is not always reliable or accurate. Addotionally, many young people still do not have a fully formed political opinion, so sometimes we cannot recognize the influence of what the people around us, such as friends or family, think.
However, from my point of view, it is not entirely fair to say that young people are more easily influenced than adults, because, in the end, people of all ages can be affected by the news and the media. I believe that there are many young people who are well informed and try to cross-check information from various sources.
In conclusion, although young people are exposed to more influences, this does not mean that we are less capable of making our own decisions. Influence is something that affects everyone, regardless of age.
In my opinion, it depends on the person because there are adults (and young people) who can be brainwashed. Some adults who believe everything they hear in news and there are younger people that believe everything in social media. Fake news or AI have cross the lines in our days. In addition it is in fashion fitting in society and many young people are afraid of having their own opinions. We must not criticise others opinion. All in all I think that all of this information we have in our days can make us brainwashed. (It doesn't matter if we are adults or young people)
I think that this is not a fair concern. With the rise of social media and influencers it is fair to have that thought that young people will get influenced but truthfully everyone can be. My grandparents cannot even tell the difference between real and AI content on Instagram, so why is it that I am the one who can get easily influenced? I believe that the young people in our world right now are going to be the uprise of our communities because of the open-mindedness and new perspectives that they bring.
In conclusion, I think that this is not a fair concern because everyone can be easliy influenced. If it is a risk then we could make sure to monotise false information online and especially not believe everything you see online. Though people may think that since elderly are easily influenced, why aren't young people, young people are born in a time where their entire lives they have learned to not believe everything they see online.
I agree that young voters are more influenced more than the old this is because the young voters are more vulnerable and are lured easily.This is mainly caused by frustrations due to lack of jobs and money for survival.Mostly voter bribery takes place there even with very little amount.Moreover,the young voters are not able to make right n wise judgements especially on the right leadership so they are tempted to move with the crowd without a second thought.On the other hand ,old voters are less influenced because they are Abit financially stable are decisive why electing leaders.In we say that it is fair to say that young voters are highly influenced by social media,friends or parents.
I agree young ones can be cheated and bribed to vote for someone for price it is not good year likes seventeen are adult to vote because they can be brain washed because they have many things to deal with at that time they vote for them self and many more years
I don’t think this is a fair concern. Opinions aren’t concrete and unchangeable. They are constantly influenced by new information and other people. I mean isn’t that the whole point of the festival? Everyone is influenced by their surroundings, friends and social media, I think it affects age groups differently though. I would suggest that voters of all ages should be encouraged to fact check information and should be taught how to critically engage with political media. Young voters are no more at risk than any other age demographic.
I believe teenagers, as it's normal for our age, try really hard to fit in and to feel they are part of a group. So, as they try to stay within the popular current, they tend to follow trends: fashion, make-up, video games... However, politics are no game. They may directly affect a country's economy, education system, healthcare system, and so on. As I've said, politics are not a trend to follow, and even though I do believe that teenagers should start to gather opinions about their own ideologies and should be well educated on politics; I also believe that these opinions should be formed out of facts, investigations and self reflections, not based on what an influencer, a parent or a friend says is correct, or the "right way".
Finally, yes, I do think that young voters tend to be more influenced by social media, family or friends.
I think this is a fair concern because young people ages are more influenced as they tend to believe anything someone reliable or biased say or believe. These young voters are not at the age of responsibility yet, which means their brains are less developed and are experienced to make a decision based on rather other people’s thoughts. Not many young people are interested in politics and wouldn’t really care who they voted for, but on the other hand the people who are might be afraid to share their opinion and beliefs, so they try to fit in.
For example, a class vote. Most of the children choose a certain side, which you don’t agree with, but you are afraid people will disagree and ask why you voted that side.
This is just like the real world and political votes. Lack of self-assurance and fear can hold back independent thinking and prioritised values. This can lead to a certain political party gaining large numbers of votes, which don’t reflect on real, personal, deep values and a result in that party winning without actual real votes that were decided on the person.
I don’t think the voting age should be lowered to sixteen in South Africa specifically. We have other problems we need to focus on (joblessness, unemployment and our housing crisis) before we try to copy first world countries like the UK. 18 to 30 is the lowest voting demographic in South Africa at the moment so not only is it something we shouldn’t be focusing on but there’s no interest in this whatsoever.
I believe that younger voters are more likely to get influenced by social media. Young people are always on their phones and not really talking to others.
I think that this is a fair concern because if people who are new to voting might just vote for who they are influenced or peer pressured to vote for a specific person which could possibly make the wrong person a leader. If it is a risk, one way to reduce this problem could be to make sure that younger people research more about voting so they can make smarter choices.
However, others might think or feel that they don't want this because they are the kind of people that manipulate new voters to unfair decisions.
In my opinion I think that this is a fair concern because younger people tend to belive most things that someone they look up to or their role modeI say or tell them whether they know it is true or not.This is because the younger they are the less experience of life they have had and don't know anything about the bigger problems or opportunities in life.
I think the Worry that younger voter are more easily influenced by social media or family is a very important part of this debate while some people believe that young people lake the life experience to resist peer pressure I believe that voting of all ages can be influenced by the media they consume or the people they live with in my opinion begin a good voter is not about age but about begin able to think critically and reaches is a fact if we learn how to spot misinformation in school 16 and 17-year-olds can be just as older adults instead of worrying about influence we should focus everyone so that all votes are based on clear information
Personally,I think that young voters are more influenced because of internet for examples,or for their family and friends.Besides ,I think that in that age you don't know yet what you want and maybe that doubts mixes with the opinion and pressure of other people makes you feel different points of view of what you really wanted.
I think this is a fair concern because we don't know about politics so much and we don't understand them a lot. If it is a risk, one way to reduce it could be educating young people in politics at schools and home to avoid this kind of influences. However, others might feel that young people are responsible enough to decide by themselves and trust external influences.
One thing that seriously worries me that no-one has talked about here is how early political opinions can harden before people even realize they’re taking sides. Kids these days are constantly being fed the same info, whether that is on insta, or any other social media platform. When kids keep on seeing this repetitively, it starts being more about common sense then influence. That's dangerous, because now it creates the picture of independent and reasonable thinking, when in reality, it is really just repetition edged into their minds from seeing the same posts over and over again.
I don’t think the solution is to blame young people or tell them to do more research. Doing that completely ignores how powerful these systems are. Algorithms are built to their core to reward outrage and emotional reactions, not careful thought and critical thinking. Expecting young voters to navigate that environment on their own is extremely unrealistic to me.
That’s why I believe that media literacy matters just as much as the right to vote. I've made many past comments, but there isn't enough stress on this. If we want young people truly involved in democracy, we also have to prepare them fully and properly. Actually learning how to question sources, recognize bias, and slow down before reacting should be seen as a basic skill, not extra if there’s time.
If we don’t take this seriously, then people are going to grow up thinking they chose their beliefs logically, when in reality those beliefs were handed to them through repetition. I strongly encourage more discussion on this.
I believe that it’s true that younger votes are more easily influenced by older prosper they respect. So in my opinion people shouldn’t vote from 16 they should at least wait till they are 18 because then they would be at the adulthood age which means that they will have understand what it means to actually vote.
I really do think younger people are more easily influenced, not just for voting but in general. If we look on social media and how many young people are online and are influenced by social media and on current trends (including myself). If many people we knew or videos we'd seen on a certain party, we'd probably make a decision based on what we have seen or heard.
With all that said, I also think that we can form our own opinions, even if we are influenced or not, I guess it is a fine line between being influenced and just recieving facts or even both.
Which group do you think is more likely to be influenced by misleading information during an election?
I think that the most likely to be influenced by misleading information is 40-60 because they are more likely to fall for misleading news then other age groups ,this means that they are to but a stronger, partisan-driven tendency to share information that favors their political side.However younger generations also have trouble distinguish between fake and real news.
In my opinion i think that most people are easily influenced because of social media,people watch people online talking about the opinions and influence to think the same and sometimes it is family and friends because they think that if its their opinion then they should follow leading to people not know how to use their opinions and just follow other people.
I think that it´s true, young people is easily influenced by others, mostly from their friends, family or someone they admire. Maybe they don´t have completely clear their ideas but someone told them something to change their way of thinking because they think that the only correct way of thinking are their own ones, so they try to make more people to think like them, but that´s not posible because each of us have our own way of thinking and our own opinion. Also when we are young, almost everyone,have a really big idol, it could be a youtuber, an actor etc, and most of the times if those people tell in public or social mediawhat i is on their minds, their fans could be influenced by it, just to became a bit more similar to the person they admire. Furthermore, friends could also influence a lot, because when we are young we are really afraid of not fitting on our group of friends and our thinkings can do that we make things we didn´t want to do. Also many politicians use social media just to say the good things they will do if people vote them, so that´s a way in which they try to ifluence young people and most of the times they finally did it. Most of us we just want the best for our country but at this ages we change a lot our opinion and that´s why we are not mature enough to have those responsabilities.
As a conclusion, this is my opinion but I know each one of us we have really different ideas.
I think it is a fair concern to worry about as young people are more easily influenced by what they watch from influencers, social media and TV. I think this happens as they are in progress of develop and don´t know so much about who to believe and who not to. But I think this is not a problem that only affects young people as also people from the adult stage can be as well easily influenced by newspapers, TV and rarely by social media apps as Youtube. I think this happen during all ages of human life as from my opinion we tend to be influenced more easy by people with power or that are famous. I believe this occurs as we think our opinion is right when it is also shared or supported by someone influencial for society and it gives us the sentiment of supremacy among others. Moreover, I think having an opinion which doesn´t fit with the one of influencers, famous people and more... gives the feeling of not fitting with others and as a result being marginated by the rest of the people.
I think the older you are the more difficult it is for someone to believe things at first if some kind of proof hasn´t been shown or explain in a realistic way. The younger people spend most of their free time with their phones spending more hours than recommended, however not everyone trust what they just saw on social media and I think it isn´t fair for the younger voters to be expected to believe everything they have seen or hear just because some people do. I also think older people who vote they can also be in this situation but they are not taken into account just because they are older and have a better mindset of what they really want whithout thinking that some kid can be determinated about what they really want to do or need. We are the future generation and as we grow the AI is going to improve with us, so I think is very important to learn how to differenciate if it is real or fake instead of thinking without knowing the truth which most of us know and if we doesn´t ,it shoudn´t matter because everyone makes mistakes but is important to try to not do them again
In this regard, I do not think it is entirely appropriate to say this is not fair because people from different ages in society may equally be influenced by social media, family, friends, as well as political campaigns. Even though youth in this case may spend more time on social media, it is only fair to note that adults may equally be influenced through the use of traditional media, beliefs, and associations, among other things.
If considered a risk, a possible solution could be to increase political education and media literacy among young people. This can help them to be aware of certain information, distinguish right from wrong, and avoid simply following others without a proper knowledge base to back their decisions.
However, some may argue that the less-experienced, young electorate may also be more susceptible or vulnerable since, for them, politics might only be social media based. Despite all the above, young people contribute positive attributes such as fresh perspectives, awareness of issues, and militancy towards certain causes, which are advantageous in the election process.
Personally I agree that younger voters are easily getting influenced and they shouldn't vote until they reach 18. Don't get me wrong ik in some cases that's not true and that some teens are really mature for their age or in opposite setuetions adults aren't fully developed, mature or serious enough to understand properly ,but It's true that teenagers can get manipulated or influenced easier than an adult would. I think teens shouldn't vote cuz they are not fully developed yet and they are still kids going through puberty. That means they are going through a period of a lot of emotions,drama, problems, changes etc.They get influenced from their circle and in most cases they are still searching for answers and forming their own opinion and thoughts. They don't even know who they are or who they want to be, let alone know about politics and the impact their decision can make.
Personally I agree that younger voters are easily getting influenced and they shouldn't vote until they reach 18. Don't get me wrong ik in some cases that's not true and that some teens are really mature for their age or in opposite setuetions adults aren't fully developed, mature or serious enough to understand properly ,but It's true that teenagers can get manipulated or influenced easier than an adult would. I think teens shouldn't vote cuz they are not fully developed yet and they are still kids going through puberty. That means they are going through a period of a lot of emotions,drama, problems, changes etc.They get influenced from their circle and in most cases they are still searching for answers and forming their own opinion and thoughts. They don't even know who they are or who they want to be, let alone know about politics and the impact their decision can make.
Honestly, I think this is not a fair concern because young people can easily get their minds corrupted on social media. If a young person suddenly comes across a video telling them to not vote for a specific political party, they might just obey what that video said.
In my opinion, it is a big risk, for me, young people that are, for example, 16 years old, should have their vote influenced by their parents or any other person close to them, not people on the internet that they don't know if they're saying the truth. They can easily be manipulated to give that political party a vote thanks to the person that corrupted their opinion with the video. I'm also a person under 16, and here, you are not able to vote until you're 18, and so far, I am not worried about what political party I should vote for when I get able to.
For me, and for every other young person that is able to vote for their first time, I would think about myself, but also, and probably even more, about other people, and also about the benefits the political party gives, and in that case, I would be really careful, like everyone should be, because there's a lot of political parties that promise really good benefits, and then they end up not existing, that is why I would really be aware about that. Voting is a hard thing, especially if you're doing it for the first time, for the people that can vote being 16, I just want to tell the young people that are already 16 years old person and live on a country when they can already vote, please, be careful, specially if you find videos related to political parties.
I think younger people are more influenced as they tend to use social media a lot and it can really influence what they think, even if it is just a joke some people might take it seriously, or actual misleading information that they believe, and they can end up voting for something they don't really want. Another big problem is that the algorithm tends to put more impacting news at the top, and those news are most likely to be fake, but because they are impacting, they are shown to everyone multiple times and they end up believing it. I also want to say that social media is very unlikely to affect older people because young people use it a lot more and they don't have such a good perspective of what is happening in the world at the moment besides social media. In conclusion, I think that the spread of misinformation on social media should be more controlled and accounts that post it should be penalised as it really affects young people when voting.
How do you think it can be controlled?
I think that young voters are more easily influenced by political parties because of how social media works.
Some apps like TikTok or Instagram show you posts or videos based on your preferences, for that reason, by just liking a post related to a political ideology, the algorithm starts showing you content related to it. Therefore, young people tend to believe a lot of information just for seeing it repeatidly online.
However, I think that online misinformation could be stopped by teaching youngsters at school and by their families to verify the information they see online to not fall for fake news, as this could cause serious problems or unfair advantages to people running for the elections.
I think young voters are more easily influenced to vote. Young voters can be influenced by family, friends,social media,. Young voters are influenced by family and friends because a young voter whose family supports one out of the two runners up and they could vote for that person just because their family told them, and a friend's could tell you to vote for one person and tell you how good one person is. A young voter can be influenced by social media because young people watch the news and political things on TikTok, Instagram, and youtube give false information about political things.
I think younger voters are more easily influenced by sosial media, family or friends because I am easily influenced too especially from sosial media. Growing up until now, I would follow popular trends happening, once I even tried to make slime by mixing shampoo with salt then freezing it. At that time, I didn't really thought further on how shampoo mixed with salt can make slime. I just made it because I saw a video of someone suceeding on making it, forgetting how they can edit and cut the video. That proves that young kids like me get influenced so quickly without thinking clearly. So, young voters should vote without getting influenced by just a video, articles or even friends and family. They should take the voting oppurtunity very wisely.
I believe this is a fair concern because younger kids today are easily influenced by peers, social media and family .If it is a risk , one way to reduce it could be lowering social media usage and making it a daily routine for younger kids to watch the news.However, others might feel that younger voters brains are fully developed to know whether things are true or not , or to let social media influence them.Younger voters have less political knowledge about what's really going on especially voters voting for the first time.Most voters are highly influenced by their environment like social organizations classmates and college experiences.Overall its really fair to say that young voters are more easily influenced by their peers, social media and family due to their developmental stage and media habits, but the propensity for influence is universal across all age groups.
I would love to put my attention on, why young voters are more influenced by social media.
Why I am putting my attention on social media is because the social media is an open place where multi user interact and post comments. My reason for setting my attention on social media is because they are many social influences found in the internet or social media these influences can either be good or bad, I am not of the bad influences because they always tend to reveal someones personal life that would be always bad or maybe would discourage voters from voting and would always tend to drive them to vote for someone else that could turn out to be a bad leader.
I think that it is true that young voters are more easily influenced because they believe everything they see on social media or something said by someone else that they think is an honest person, this is because young people's brains are fully developed and they tend to believe everything that is heard without doing any kind of research.
my only advice for you is to try your best to avoid bad influences on social media because they are called bad influences for a reason. You can make your own choice for your self you do not need any body's help in voting or electing a leader. If you can't do so let me know so I can explain more to your understanding. so my question for you is are you capable of choosing your leader for your self.
i think that young voters are easily influenced because they tend to believe whatever thing an elderly one would tell them and will also obey the fact that it is true. Most younger voters don't really pay attention to their economy rather than the trending things so they will lack knowledge about voting, politics, and election. they might even judge based on likes or dislikes and not the characteristics of the person. all this is through misinformation .
finally, i think that young voters are easily influenced
It os fair to say so because most of our minds (not all) are still young and are prone to much unawareness. with this they could be easily bribed or swayed by family and friends. On the other hand, there are still some young people that are morally stable and are not easily swayed, while there are many adults today that accept countless bribes so yes, this could be attributed to adults too, not only younger voters
I think it is true that young people are easily influenced because they spend a lot of time on social media, where opinions and false information spread quickly. Family and friends can also affect them while they are still learning about politics.
One way to reduce this risk is by teaching people how to check facts and listen to different view points. This helps them make up their own minds instead of just copying others.
However, some people might argue that adult are influenced in the same way too. So if everyone can be influenced, is it really fair to single out young voters?
YES
Most young voter are easily influenced by peer group or friend because they believe friend help to build mental and social belong among and do not care if it affected positively or negatively which does not allow them to make their own decision during election. the solution is to build more self confidence in your vote. people may disagree it is believe to be social media but it is the people around them
I think that this is a fair concern because brain development matters a lot in this topic and Dr. Laurence Stienberg said that the brain is not fully developed until the age 25. Which makes young voters more responsive and vulnerable to peer pressure and different influences, and political campaigns use this opportunity by making youth targeted ads more about identity or fears rather than about policy. Secondly, I feel that young voters lack political experience and Political scientist Philip Converse argued that voters more like young voters tend to have less stable political beliefs because they have fewer elections behind them. Social media also massively increases influence everyday. If it is a risk, one way to reduce it cold be compulsory media education and I think of this because I feel that if children or teens are properly educated on the advantages and disadvantages of the media, then we won't really have to worry so much. This solution might not really protect young voters from being influenced easily, but for me it equips them to challenge it. However, others might feel that if influence seems to be the problem, it may not be age that matters but how critically people consume information. But for me, I think that the real danger is not young voters being easily influenced, it is them being influenced without the tools to question or challenge it.
I think this is a fair concern because friends matter a lot especially for young voters' so they are likely to believe whatever they say and through this they can be influenced easily either negatively or positively.
So young voters should have self-awareness programs to avoid this.
thank you for reading.
I agree that young voters are more easy to influence, since they do not have the same wisdom and have less experience as older voters. Young voters tend to follow and get influenced by the older ones. They tend to believe the words of someone they respected than their own thoughts. Also, their minds has not reach the same emotional intelligent and decision-making skills as older voters because of their age. Young people also don't really read the news nor know a lot about politics, so, if they were given the right to vote, they would obviously just follow trends or other people and not vote based on their opinions and thoughts. So, if voters that are too young are given the right to vote, they would disrupt the balance and political parties will just take advantage of it.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Do you think that adults can be influenced to vote? Could you give me an example of when this might happen?
Hello! Thanks for replying. Yes, I do agree that adults can also be influenced to vote. They can be influenced by getting bribed, following trends because of the fear of missing out, or even their ignorance about politics. I've heard of some cases where adults couldn't care less about the current politics and just vote for whoever they want. There's also some cases where they lack cash to get by, so they get bribed to vote. However, this is just some cases I've heard from my relatives. I still believe that young voters have a higher risk of being influenced than adults, mostly because of their lack of experience and their still-evolving minds. Young voters also tend to be on the side where it has the most support from people, because they're scared to be different and vote based on their beliefs. So, yes, I do believe that adults can also be influenced to vote. However, I also believe that there are a higher chance for youngsters to be influence to vote, hence my comment about this current topic.
Hello! Thanks for replying. Yes, I do agree that adults can also be influenced to vote. They can be influenced by getting bribed, following trends because of the fear of missing out, or even their ignorance about politics. I've heard of some cases where adults couldn't care less about the current politics and just vote for whoever they want. There's also some cases where they lack cash to get by, so they get bribed to vote. However, this is just some cases I've heard from my relatives. I still believe that young voters have a higher risk of being influenced than adults, mostly because of their lack of experience and their still-evolving minds. Young voters also tend to be on the side where it has the most support from people, because they're scared to be different and vote based on their beliefs. So, yes, I do believe that adults can also be influenced to vote. However, I also believe that there are a higher chance for youngsters to be influence to vote, hence my comment about this current topic.
I think this is a fair concern because young people are more inclined to believe everything said to them without doing proper research because if something sounds appealing or believable they will just believe it. Younger people have a bigger dependency on social media and usually get all their news and information from platforms such as Tiktok and Instagram but studies have shown that even though younger people have better abilities finding their way around technology this does not always help them with identifying what is real and what is fake .In the 2016 US elections Bernie Sanders was a candidate that was really popular among the younger people. He did this by appealing to their biggest issues and he got his message across using the internet and people claimed that he came with fresh new ideas. Even though he did not win the elections he had the most votes from younger people out of all the candidates because he knew how to properly target issues younger people struggle with .This could have led to younger people convincing others to "hop on the boat". If it is a risk, one way to reduce it could be by properly educating younger people about spotting misinformation and creating space where there is a limit on misleading information. However, others might feel that younger people are not easily influenced as sometimes once they have their mind stuck on something they will not change their mind about it.
I think this is a fair concern because younger people can be vulnerable and more gullible to misinformation, when it comes to things like politics. Not all young people are easily influenced, but the majority are. Some young people are easily influenced while others are not and some may have a mind that thinks differently compared to others. Some young people are more mature than others. Young people have a voice and an understanding of what happens around them, but what we don't have is experience, and that can be important to help us understand more politics than we already know, especially if we haven't experienced how a party or a political leader runs a country. We won't know if that person is a good person to vote for or if they are even a good political leader,we can only rely on the resources we have around us like social media to know and understand certain topics, which can spread misinformation that we believe is true. We often believe what we hear if it comes from a highly respected person.
There are many factors that influence the young generation like family,traditions,social media,faith,religion,other people and society. Family,social media and other people are the biggest factors that influence us. Many political parties use social media to gain votes,popularity and power which influences us to vote for them. Even our algorithms on social media will shape our perspective and influence us to only see a narrowed view. Family and religion can compel us to do certain things and act a certain way which will affect how we see and view things,influencing us.
I think this is a fair concern because many young people have lots of social media sites which includes views of many parties (e.g- Labour party, Green party, Conservatives, Reform UK). Furthermore, many young people support and look up to certain influencers which can result in them not doing their own research on voting and political views and just listening to influencers like they don't have a voice or choice. If it is a risk, one way to reduce it could be heightening to social media age from (in the UK) 13 and over to 16 and over, as I also believe that 16 year olds are mature enough to vote.
I can't agree because not all younger people are influenced by social media, family and friends .But some young people are more influenced because they lack wisdom, knowledge and decisions making.They do what other around them do ,what there parent or guardians tell them and they tend to believe and what social media says.Although most young people are very acknoledgable about these kind of things they can't involve thereselve in such a thing . Also this can reduce if young people can taught to think cretically and make there own decision .
I agree because... they do what their elders do
Yes I strongly agree that young voters are highly influenced by social media,family and friends.This is because most of the times young people are online and in various social media platforms where the aspirants convince them online to support them.
Secondly,they can be influenced by their parents and friends.And since they would love to remain loyal to them they are forced to dance their tune.
I think that younger people are more easily influenced in regards to voting; as their choices and decisions are slightly more simplistic. As an adult voting they generally base it on economical,
environmental and social values . Young people are always learning and may not consider higher tax rates or more taxes being introduced to the economy . They may not think about that and try to fit in and vote for the person all their friends are voting or they may have seen a video of their favourite social media star and they have said who their voting and the child may want to be more like them then will vote who that social media star has said to vote because they trust them and love them and do not think about the future of the economy.
I think this is not a fair concern because every generation can be influenced by their experiences, environment, the news and the media. Young voters often use social media and are exposed to online trends, but they also have access to a wider range of information and perspectives than previous and older generations. In addition, these people usually research issues, compare sources and are involved in discussions that help them form their independent opinions for the future. To sum up, I believe that some teenagers are very well informed and they bring fresh ideas and new perspectives, especially on topics such as technology or education.
However, others might feel that young voters are more vulnerable to peer pressure and viral content online, which oversimplify complex political issues or encourage them to follow popular opinions instead of forming their own ideas.
I keep thinking about how messed up it is that teens grow up pondering they’re thinking for themselves when they’re really just seeing the same posts over and over. I've stated this in my past 3 comments and want to strongly emphasize digital literacy as a possible sturdy solution. Most algorithms have stuff that actually gets clicks and reactions, mostly emotion; because that gives them revenue. You view it enough times whether that's on Instagram, or any other social media platform, and suddenly it feels like common sense to you. Then, all of a sudden, you’re in a bubble where everyone agrees with you and no one ever challenges it or has opinions against it. That’s absurd because opinions will start to shape before anyone even realizes they’re being influenced.
Now, we can’t just tell young teens to do their research or think for themselves. That’s pretty unrealistic. These systems are too powerful that even full grown adults are addicted. The only way to actually fight it is media literacy. Learning how to actually check sources and notice bias shouldn’t be optional. Here in Vancouver, we have lots of classes on this. Unfortunately, people with less access to digital infrastructure don't get the same treatment.
I don’t know how else to push and advocate for it; media literacy isn’t "extra" anymore. It’s a basic necessity for anyone who wants to actually participate in democracy. Thats why I believe it's necessary for more digital literacy to be implemented in schools worldwide. If anyone has anything to add or continue the discussion, feel free to reply!
Some people believe younger voters are more easily influenced by social media, family, or friends. Teenagers and young adults often spend a lot of time online, where information can spread quickly and is not always accurate. Because they may have less life experience, critics argue that younger voters might follow popular opinions instead of researching political issues deeply.
On the other hand, others say influence affects all ages, not just the young. Adults and older people can also be influenced by television, newspapers, community beliefs, or long-held traditions. In fact, some older voters may rely on familiar opinions without questioning them. This shows that influence is a human issue, not simply an age issue.
In my view, instead of limiting voting by age, societies should focus on education and critical thinking skills. Teaching people how to check information and form independent opinions would make voting fairer for everyone.
Honestly, I think that one can get easily influenced. Young voters can actually be more prone to it. Elderly voters may have better experience and understand how to control his mind not to get easily influenced. This may not be true to all elderly voters but most of them can actually control and direct their mind so that their votes may not be easily influenced.
Others may say that all voters actually get influenced easily because age is just a number but I tend to disagree with it. With more age, actually comes more knowledge and wisdom.
I think that influence dose not only affect the young both that of all ages, but both the young are more easily influenced by what somebody they idolize say to them it can be an adult, social media platform and a group of friends they have close to them. and this is because they have lack of experience about what is happening in the country and the economy and sometimes do it to fit in with others. Political parties can take advantage of this to get the votes they need to win the election. THANK YOU.
The characterization of young people as "easily influenced" conflates ease of exposure with ease of influencing, and in fact, conflates both concepts with weakness.
A person who is surrounded by many voices, not one, must constantly compare, question and reconstruct their opinions, rather than encountering a ready-made one. Influence can be more powerful when it is not seen. When ideas are repeated continuously within a family, a community, or an information space, they can come to feel like how things are rather than what someone thinks. Such influence is not generally challenged and, as such, can be powerful rather than wise.
Young people may be more willing to alter their opinions, but this does not necessarily mean that they are confused. Democracy does not improve by allowing citizens to maintain unchanging opinions.
Democracy improves when citizens are willing to test their opinions against new truths.
It thrives not when citizens are not influenced, but when citizens deliberately choose their beliefs. This is precisely what young voters are still learning to do.
I think this is a fair concern because many young people get their information primarily from social media, where fake news and misinformation can easily spread. One way to improve this would be to teach them how to verify sources. Furthermore, young people may vote without being fully informed about the political consequences. To reduce this, clearer and more accessible information could be provided before elections, although a lack of information isn't always related to age. Another solution would be to teach more political topics in schools so that young people have the same right to vote as any adult.
It depends but its still a fair concern since youg people who think are "experts" on the topic usually believe most of what they see on social media, even more when it comes from older people, here's why. Young people like me don't usually tend to watch the news so they have a lack of knowledge about it and when they see someone that appears to know something about a specific political partie and they look confident enough, they mostly believe them. That way the popularity of that partie icreases but not fairly because they are getting brainwashed by them.
However others might disagree because they feel ready to vote following their own preferences, I'm not against that but I feel like most of the young voters might prefer to wait untill they gain enough confidence.
Getting back to the point, I think voting for the sake of a country is a great responsability that should be in the hands of mature people that are not afraid to express their thoughts to fit in society.
I do think it is true, that young voters could be more easily influenced than maybe, more experienced voters. This doesn’t mean, that people, who have been voting for quite a while aren’t influenceable at all though. The thing is, the younger generations usually are more likely to be on social media and see videos about certain parties, which could make them believe fake news. Another aspect is that, nowadays there’s also a lot of peer pressure, which makes people scared of being different, this leads to very monotone opinions, which can be very dangerous. People are afraid to have different opinions so they make decisions because of others even if they actually wanted to go into a different direction.
Social media is of course a huge part as well, it is more likely for a young voter to be active online than somebody, who is a little older. On social media a lot of political opinions are expressed as well, if there is for example an influencer you watch or follow regularly and they issue a political opinion, you might go along just because you feel like you’ve built up a connection with them, so you automatically agree. Also if politicians start to get active online, they can gain trust through being active regularly but also through making funny or relatable content. Young voters would be trusting their content and not political values and that can be dangerous because they wouldn’t be voting for what they think is politically correct.
Well, I really think that youger people can be more infuenced that old people by social media. This is because younger people tend more to see social media everywere and understand it more than old people. This is because, old people didnt have lots of electronic devices to comunicate between them and thisw happens because technology has encreased a lot in the last 10 years or less. Most of the old people try to undersant politics on TV, in the newspaper, the radio... Besides, young people, most of the things they know about politics, they have learnt them from social media or by chatting with friends. This is because most young people dont read the newspaper or even see the TV. This is because as in social media you can find the information you want very fast, young people tend to use it. Also, because in social media, you can see the information you want to see, eventhough most of the times is false. This is because most of the people that talk about politics in social media are people that dont really know what they are talking about and they just say whatever they like the most for the people that see it think its the best option. Also, infuencers that talk about politics are experts of talking well to people and this makes that young people trust them. In conclusion, this are all my facts about why I think that young people can be more influenced by social media for voting.
I think this is not a fair concern because influence depends more on awareness than age. Young voters are often blamed because they use social media alot, but older voters also trust TV, WhatsApp messages and familiar news sources without checking them.
In social studies, we learned democracy needs informed citizens. I have personally seen fake news shared in class group chats before anyone checked if it was true. The same thing happens with adults.
This shows that anyone can be influenced if they didn't stop and question the information carefully.
I would say that young voters can be more easily influenced, because their presence on social media is much higher then other generations. It is easy to believe content on social media, especially if you see the same political statements over and over due to the algorithms. Or if you see your favorite influencer or a person you relate to making a statement, you might agree more then if it‘s someone who‘s not interesting/relevant to you. Young voters also don’t have that much experience or knowledge with politics yet, so its easier to make them believe something then other generations.
On the other side not only young voters can be influenced, it‘s common that older generations are as well. Many older people don’t understand social media all the way and can be tricked by it, the same goes with AI. They might not be able to spot a video made by AI right away and because of that could believe that content and spread it.
So altogether I would say that young voters can be influenced, but other voters can be as well.
I agree because young people´s mind are simpler because they haven´t live too many experince to have developed an own point of view of the situations. So to make it easier, they just adapt of what their parents say or someone that they know or from a video in social media as they don´t have another point of view that says the opposite.
In my opinion the best solucion for this kind of problem is to teach and promote to the young people to have their own ideas of different topics giving suggesting them to listen to both sites of the situations and after that have their own opinion.
I think that young people are affected as much as other adults, but each age group is influenced in a different way.
First group age is 10-29 years old. This is the group of young people. This group is often influenced by the following ways:
1-Social media
2-Friends
3-Family
4-Education
This is because young people are still educating and live with their family, hang out with friends and watch social media so these thing shapes their political view the most.
Second age group 30-49 are also influenced but in different ways:
1-Jobs and careers
2-Their family
3- Retirement laws
This group is in the job time as they spent most of their time in their jobs, so they get affected by it, also affected by their family (wife/husband and children) because he/she focuses their efforts for family, working to ensure comfort, stability and legacy for their loved ones and of course would look for what benefits them. Last but not least this age group is always planning for good retiring so any change about the retirement laws will get their attention.
Third and last age group is 50 and above. This group is also influenced but in different ways, for example:
1-Family and grandchildren
2-Health and doctors
3- Radios and newspapers
This age group is often influenced by their family and grandkids, health and doctors' issue because they focus on their health to live as long as possible and at last radios and newspapers.
That's why I advise candidates to address all the key factors that shape each segment of society, ensuring that every group feels represented and motivated to vote for them.
Yes it is because younger people have less life experience.Yes they have more excess to information but do they really use it? Because young people are more on social media that is made to be influential.They can be much easier to be swayed to vote for whoever their favourite musician or influencer is voting for.Young people are more likely to keep up with trends that can also inflence who they vote for.But i also hear the rest opinions on how young people arent the only ones that can be swayed,but I definitely think they are easier.
I think that it is true that young people are easily influenced by parents, social media, friends and others. And the main reason of this I think it happens because the mind of a teen is in an evolving state until a more older age. That's why we let people mold and shape us, so we can learn, grow up and evolve. And with politics I think it happens the same, because they hear close persons to them talking about problems and political parties that they preffer. This also happens with social media and influencers, because imagine that a teenager likse so much a content creator and then, this person starts speaking about his political prefferences. This is going to also make that teenager to preffer that policy. This means that, if a political party wants to make content or pay a content creator to talk good about their policy, this will make a lot of mind-growing teens to preffer that political party.
I think such a concern is not fair since voters within different age ranges are subject to influence by different factors such as social media, family, friends, and information from news outlets. The elderly may be exposed to information from television, news outlets, or are inclined towards maintaining particular beliefs, while the younger generation is exposed to information through the internet and different social media platforms, but such influence is not unique to one group or the other, regardless of the source. In the end, if such influence is the actual concern, it could be curbed through improving levels of media literacy, and individuals would be in a position to know the necessary steps to take to scrutinize facts and the likelihood of bias in the information presented to them, but to some, the fact that the young are exposed to the internet implies that they could be highly susceptible to information that could mislead them as opposed to the adult ones.
I think this is not a fair concern, because being influenced is not something unique to young voters. People of all ages are influenced by social media, family, friends, news outlets, and personal beliefs. Older voters may rely more on traditional media or long-held views, while younger voters are more exposed to online platforms, but influence exists at every age. Singling out young voters ignores the fact that no group makes political decisions in isolation.
It is true that social media can spread misinformation quickly, which can be a risk for younger voters. One way to reduce this risk is through better media literacy education, so people learn how to question sources, recognize bias, and verify information before accepting it. This would benefit voters of all ages, not just young people.
However, others might argue that younger voters lack life experience and are therefore more easily swayed. While experience matters, it does not automatically make someone less influenced. Many older voters also vote based on emotion, habit, or loyalty rather than careful evaluation. For this reason, it is unfair to assume that young voters are uniquely vulnerable, when influence is a shared part of political decision-making across generations.
It is often claimed that young voters are more easily influenced than older ones, but this is only partly true. Influence affects people of all ages, even if it seems more obvious among the young.
Those who agree with the statement argue that teenagers and first-time voters have less political experience. Their opinions are still forming, so they may rely more on family, friends or social media. Young people also spend a lot of time online, where trends, influencers and misinformation can quickly shape attitudes.
However, it is unfair to suggest that only young voters are influenced. Adults are also strongly affected by news outlets, social media algorithms and cultural background. Many older voters support the same party for years without questioning their views, which shows that influence does not disappear with age.
Young people today often have good digital skills and access to fact-checking tools. This can help them research issues carefully and make informed decisions. Being open to influence is not always negative, as it can show a willingness to learn and consider new ideas.
In conclusion, while young voters may be impressionable in some ways, it isn't fair to say they are more easily influenced than everyone else. Influence is a normal part of democracy, and all voters must take responsibility for thinking critically before making decisions.
Young voters are frequently surrounded by a significantly greater rate of opinions online, so I believe that this is only a legitimate worry in some circumstances, not because they irresponsible. Ideas may begin to feel like facts when they are repeated by friends, influencers, and technology. According to TUFTS, research shows that young people rely heavily on social media for political information, which influences how they engage with politics and voting, 77% of young people named social media or YouTube as one of there top sources of political information as well. Teaching people to slow down and challenge information, particularly on social media where posts are meant to rather be persuasive than educational, could possibly help lower the risk if there is one. However, others may argue that age is not equivalent to independence because older voters are also impacted by traditional media, political habits, and family traditions. For these reasons, I believe that influence has less to do with youth and more to do with whether or not someone actively questions media rather than accepting what they hear.
I partially agree with the statement it is true that young voters tend to get easier influenced by social media, friends or family, because the brain is still developing and they understand information differently than older generations. But older voters can also get influenced especially by the media because they tend to believe „everything“ that is said there.
You say older people tend to believe everything that is said by the media. Is this an assumption or you have evidence for this?
I think that young voters are more easily influenced, but everyone can be influenced.
On the one hand, young voters have less experience and if someone say something to them they will do it. Also, every people can be influenced and they can allow themselves and be influenced.
On the other hand, young voters can be very safe and determined with their opinions and if someone say something to them they wouldn't be influenced.
In conclusion, young people are more easily influenced because they have less experience.
It's a fair concern to say young voters are more easily influenced, but not because they're irresponsible or incapable; it's because they're growing up inside a nonstop stream of opinions. Today, young people don't really choose when they're exposed to politics anymore. It shows up online, through friends, and at home. When their views are still developing, it's easy for those opinions to influence them without much thought.
Social media makes this influence even stronger. What they see is often chosen for them, repeated constantly, and designed to trigger emotion rather than careful thought. When the same idea appears again and again, it can begin to feel like common sense instead of someone else's perspective and bias.
If this is a risk, one way to reduce it is by teaching young people how to pause and question information. Media literacy, fact-checking, and open discussion help them understand not just what they believe, but why.
At the same time, others might argue that young voters aren't the only ones influenced. Adults are shaped by the media, the people around them, and the beliefs they've held for years. From that perspective, influence isn't really about age, but about whether someone is willing to question what they're told. In the end, when political opinions are built online instead of through experience, the power of influence towards young people can outweigh independent thinking.
I think it is not a fair concern because it is already widely believed that people who are minors are too young and that their mindset is too shallow for them to really vote for anything in their life or make many mature decisions, also because they go on social media a lot more than many adults, which leads a lot of people to assume that they make most of their decisions based on whatever social media may say about whatever topic it speaks about. This is mainly because a lot of young people in the newer generation do not have a lot of life experience which could mislead them, but there are also a lot of young people who have been through a lot despite their ripe age. One way that they could be mislead easily is through social media, if the political party acts all fun and friendly in the platform, it displays their nature, whether it be true or not. Speaking as a young person, younger voters are indeed more easily influenced, but it doesn't include all of them.
I do think that young voters are very easily more influenced, and it is a very big concern nowadays. I think this because young people (including me) think that the more time we see the same information, it means that the information is normally more accurate and we should trust it, but that can sometimes be untrue. Another reason I think young voters are more easily influenced is that we are so exposed to false information, and we don't care if we fit in; we just want it to be fast and convenient for us. But on the other hand, we are now starting to change, and kids nowadays are getting smarter and starting to be more aware of the information that is being provided to them. So, in conclusion, it depends on the Country and on the person that is being influenced.
You say that young voters are more easily influenced. Do you have evidence for this?
I disgree with this because I think older people are more easily influced then younger people because most older people could be tricked using ai and they mostly aren't open minded and they stick to what they think.Also they aren't used to ai and the internet and could beileve everything they see on the internet.
You make some big claims about old people and them being influenced by AI and the internet. Is this the case for just old people or does it affect the whole of society? How do you think AI will influence elections in the future?
I personally think that younger voters like around 18 and under are more easily influenced than any voters in the 18 and above age groups whether they are influenced by the people around them like friends or family or anything they see on social media, because most of them tend to rely on anything they see on the internet, like AI for example, more people tend to use it now because they're having a hard time finding any information on other websites or they might just simply be lazy and sometimes AI can be misleading. Plus they might not know about politics since they are quite new to the outside world, so they might not care much about the pros and cons of the political parties.
Young people also tend to use social media a lot and they could easily get influenced by other people's opinions without stopping to think about how the information that they provide might be fake. Politicians can post news in order to create attention from younger voters, which can often cause manipulation and confusion to happen via social media.
How do you think we could equip people with more skills to be more critical about what they read and see online?
Honestly, I think this is not a fair concern because young people can easily get their minds corrupted on social media. If a young person suddenly comes across a video telling them to not vote for a specific political party, they might just obey what that video said.
In my opinion, it is a big risk, for me, young people that are, for example, 16 years old, should have their vote influenced by their parents or any other person close to them, not people on the internet that they don't know if they're saying the truth. They can easily be manipulated to give that political party a vote thanks to the person that corrupted their opinion with the video. I'm also a person under 16, and here, you are not able to vote until you're 18, and so far, I am not worried about what political party I should vote for when I get able to.
For me, and for every other young person that is able to vote for their first time, I would think about myself, but also, and probably even more, about other people, and also about the benefits the political party gives, and in that case, I would be really careful, like everyone should be, because there's a lot of political parties that promise really good benefits, and then they end up not existing, that is why I would really be aware about that. Voting is a hard thing, especially if you're doing it for the first time, for the people that can vote being 16, I just want to tell the young people that are already 16 years old person and live on a country when they can already vote, please, be careful, specially if you find videos related to politics.
You raise a good point that even though you can vote for a political party, they might not follow through with their ideas. Who's responsibility is it to hold these parties to account? Do you think younger or older people might have more influence?
I'm pretty sure younger people would have more influence with the responsibility of voting for the party they think it's the best, since older people are probably more used to voting and understanding the pros and cons each party is giving (even though some of them could be lies, as I said in my other comment). As I also said, younger people are mostly new to voting, so they don't have that much of an idea of who to vote, so that's why some of them could find content related to one party and simply go vote for that one, falling for the manipulation, giving another free vote to the party they thought it was the best by simply watching untrustworthy sources. Meanwhile, older people are more influenced of the past and know what the political parties mostly do by simply watching them over the years, especially because most of them are adults, and when they started voting at 16-18, they didn't have mobile phones like nowadays to use the social media as a source of information for political parties.
I think that young voters aren't as influenced as older people are. First , a lot of younger people don't really vote, since they can feel scared that they will vote wrong. I think older people ,who are over 60 , might actually be more influenced . They never grew up with technology, so whatever they see, they believe. This might not be true for everyone, but the majority, including older members of my family, believe most everything they see online, thinking "This is on video, this must be right!" even if it's AI or biased. On the other hand, the younger people that do vote, can also be influenced based on what they see, and that can be the exact same content as the older people. For example, in South Korea, candidates took photos with k-pop idols to boost and influence people's votes. What do you think?
In my opinion, it is true that younger people tend to be more easily influenced than they tend to believe. The main factor is social media and its corresponding algorithms. Since young people tend to be more active on social media, they are also more likely to get trapped in a sort of bubble. When that happens, they get fed only a specific type of content, which limits many other perspectives. In turn, the persons opinions become ever more influenced and sometimes radicalised beacause of this. Ofcourse, this isnt just limited to young people
I partially think that this is a fair concern considering the fact that young people often haven’t learned critical thinking yet and often like to agree with others instead of having their own opinion. However, adults can also be influenced by people and other things including social media. This is often forgotten because of how many teenagers love to spend their time scrolling which leads to them believing the things online without questioning them.
Younger people often aren’t informed that well and don’t know/understand what’s happening in the political world. It is hard for them to have an opinion when they don’t know the facts. Oftentimes feeling understood by influencers or friends and family and hearing those people’s political views, younger voters tend to think that these opinions are “right” and agree with them. This is why, on one hand, younger voters are easier to influence.
On the other hand, social media is used by both teens and adults, which means that adults can also be influenced by what they see online. Even though they have more experience in life and are usually informed well by watching the news, etc., that does not mean that they don’t make decisions based on other people’s opinions too.
I think that it’s still easier to influence younger voters because they often don’t have a political opinion in the first place which is the result of them not being informed well enough. An idea to prevent this is teaching teenagers more about politics in school. However, it is important to not include personal opinions while teaching the students these things.
A lot of people think that young voters can be influenced more easily/are more easily influenced by social media, their family or also friends. I think that this is only partly true and not only for young people. Social media plays a big role in the life of younf people becuase they can connect to their friends and see many different opinion on different topics every day. But this can also influence their view on politics. People who often surf in the internet don't always check the sources of the information they get and often believe them. But to them it's also very important how their family and friends see them. So they often try to adapt to the political views of their family and friends. However, older people can also be influenced very easily. They often trust news, TV or opinions of people around them without even checking their sources and if they are true or not.
So in conclusion everyone can be influenced by others, no matter how old they are. So in my opinion, it is not fair to say that young voters can be influenced more easily. It always dependes more on the person than on the age.
Can you say more on why you think that young people try to adapt their political views around their friends and family?
A lot of young people adapt their political views to their friends and family because they want to belong to a group. Friends and family are very important to them, because they are the closest people around them, who they meet every day and spend a lot of time with, especially when they are young. Having the same opinions can avoid conflicts and arguments between them. Another reason is that young people are still developing and learning about their own identity. They are often influenced by the people around them and often don`t have very much experience with other opinions yet. But over time, they often become more independent and form their own political views which is often but not always the same as their family and friends.
I think this is a fair concern because while you are younger your brain is not fully developed until you are 25 or as some research suggests, until your early 30's. As the newer generations are being influenced through social media platforms such as TikTok, instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, misinformation is being spread. If someone spreads a false rumour on instagram it could easily go viral. If everyone is talking about it and your friend says it like it's true, why wouldn't you believe it?
However younger generations spend far more time on devices than older people so are more likely to be influenced by the messages conveyed by these platforms. Older people would also be more influenced by social media if we were to assume the same degree of exposure to it. They didn't grow up with it so aren't as attuned to what is real or fake news. What is AI may be easier for the younger generations to determine. Just as older people fall for phone scams more easily, they could be influenced by social media more!
I think it is fair to say that young voters are more easily influenced by others as they don’t have enough experience to understand complicated political issues. This makes it harder for them to critically analyze political arguments or matters. As a result they may rely on the opinions of family, social media or of their friends when it comes to forming their political views. In addition, many young voters may fear not fitting into the society nowadays or their social groups because of their opinions. This fear of not being accepted or left out by others can discourage them from expressing their own opinions. Instead of questioning political ideas may support the most popular and accepted opinion within their community. As a result , social pressure combined with limited experience can increase young voters weakness to influence by others. Nevertheless, I still believe that young people should have the right to vote because eventhough they are more easily influenced, participation in politics and elections helps them to learn more about politics and become a more responsible and independent person in society. It also gives them the opportunity, to shape their own future lives because the decisions politicians now are making, have an impact on young people’s future life.
I think that younger people do tend to be influenced more easily , but that does not nessarily mean something bad. In my oppinion they get influneced more easily because they trust informations more and still have to lern how to search for right informations on secure sources. On the other hand I woulnˋt say older people are as ealily influenced as younger ones, but that they tend to fall into habit when it comes to their voting choice. So in conclusion I donˋt think saying ˋˋyounger peole are influenced more easilyˋˋ is a good argument because it also means they are more open to new ideas and views. I think falling into habit is as bad as being very easily influenced, so you need a bit of both. You have to be open to new ideas but also stand to your oppinion and not let others fool you.
Thank you for reading my text :)
Do you agree or disagree
I believe that young voters are easily influenced by the people around them.
Children tend to believe everything said by someone they respect and if they keep believing and collecting bribes they would not be free and fair practice of democracy because children won’t be able to have right to their freedom of expression and their own opinions.
And it’ll make them to not be able to state their own opinions because adults can be influential and young people can be influenced and also they don’t have much knowledge of democracy.
With this reasons I suggest that young child shouldn’t be allowed to vote based on the bad economy of bribery and corruption we have.
I’m best_personality and I think the younger voters can get influenced because they don’t have as much experience with social pressure. Also they will not know a lot about what political parties will affect them the most . If one major influencer chooses a party the majority of their followers will vote for the same political party .whereas older voters will vote their opinion or on their traditional vote ( that the family do).
I think that is true that younger voters are more easily influenced because they are still forming their opinions and often get information from social media.
Many young voters spend a lot of time on social media, where they see political content every day. Sometimes this information is false, and it can influence the way they think. Also, influencers and friends can affect their opinions.
They can also be influenced by their family members, young people often grow up listening to their parents´ political opinions, so this can shape the way they think about politics.
I think that this is a fair concern since alot of young people are more influenced as they tend to believe anything someone reliable or biased say or believe. Since these young voters are not the age to learn respect and responsibility yet which means that they don't have the same brain abilities as older people that have been in life longer .Not that many young people are interested in anything to do with politics and wouldn't really be bothered with who they voted for ,but on the other hand the people who don't know who to vote or are scared might ask there friends for there opinions and so they can fit in with most of the population. For example a class class vote or a vote on what to do that day. Mostly everyone choose different sides which sometimes lots of people will disagree with and they will most likely ask why did you vote for them and why them not what everyone else has voted it is astonishing for what people say when it is time to vote for people .
This is exactly like the real world around us all and political votes. Lack of self-assurance and fear can hold back lots of fears about voting and your independence will be worse than it was before independent thinking would prioritised values of educational information and trust. This can lead to a particular political party gaining large amounts of votes which would not get reflected on in real , personal, and extraordinary values and it shows a result of who wins that exact political party, winning without any actual votes that were decided on that person who created them themselves without anyone helping them.
I think this is a fair concern because young people are more influenced by who they look up to.
For example: younger voters might look at their parents\carers and think that they more precise and will listen to them as their role-model/role-models. Whereas, older people will be more independent and use their own presumptions whilst voting for their future leader.
Younger voters may consider looking up to a famous person (such as Taylor Swift) and think that they should vote for whoever their considering voting for. Another example would be trying to fit in maybe with your class or a club and they might force you to vote for who they think is right for them.
Are young voters more easily influenced?
I think younger voters can be easily influenced as they believe everything said by anyone they know, whether that person is their family members, influencers, friends and even more. This is because they don't understand a lot about elections and they also never experienced any elections before. They also wouldn't know who they want to vote for because they do not understand what situation is going on around them. Young voters also don't know if something they saw on social media they hear is true or not because they are too young to know about the news. Other people may tell things they heard about a person up for election and it was from experts but with the use of AI the experts could look the same as the original expert, young voters may vote for them, and something bad may happen. Like when Donald Trump the president of The United States ran for president, he said he was going to target criminals that were in America illegally. Well, America is using Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to target people for no good reason. Everyone is protesting. It could be really risky.One way to reduce it could be to stop telling rumors about anybody they are voting for. Everybody has their own opinion.We could also teach them about the actions politicians take. For example teaching them the good things that this person did and the bad things they also did. All voters should know and understand the facts.
I think this is a fair concern because if someone had a close friend, or their Mum, Dad, ANYONE then they could decide based on their opinion. I also think that you can't judge them because it could be someone they have grown up with and they can trust but you have to vote based on their life and their decision if their young and have children if their transgender (which means if their a boy that wants to be a girl), if their young and want to get married it's based on their life not anyone else's. If a decision was based on THEIR life and is not good for the voter's life what would they do what if it was bad for that person that votes on something based on someone else's perspective.
Hello everyone!!
In my opinion , on the one hand , it is true that young people are more influenced because they think they now a lot, but in the end, they don´t have much expirence. So for them, the only way to understand things is through social media such as Instagram, Tiktok and many others. However, on the other hand, it is not fair to say that only young people are more influenced by social media, as it also affects all ages. For example, older people consume a lot of information and trust the people around them, so they can be influenced .
In conclusion, it is not just young people who are more easily influenced by social media, but also people of other ages. So, to change this situation, I think we should be more critical .