Youth Voting Decline Essay

464 Words2 Pages

Additionally, it could also be said that England’s youth voting decline is also heavily influenced by the agents of political socialisation. The author Brian D. Loader explains why the millennials are more vulnerable to such influences and lead to an apathetic connection between youth and voting, “The picture of apathy becomes more complicated when the experiences of young people are considered within the context of growing up in a rapidly changing socio-economic world characterized by globalization, individualization, deinstitutionalization, increased mobility, consumerism, and saturated by new media such as the internet”. The authors words suggest that today’s youth has grown up in a very different society than the older generations. This …show more content…

These new economic, technological and social changes including the introduction of the internet, and later, social media, has led for more exposure of the critical political attitudes. Especially, now that young individuals can be active members in the global village just by having a technological device at their fingertips. Thus, making it easier for them to be politically influenced in a negative manner. Jason Gainous, Kevin Wagner, and Tricia Gray support this in their research as they state that the “Internet increases the opportunity to be exposed to dissent, such exposure should have the effect of stimulating negative attitudes concerning the state regime and internal conditions”. This suggests that the older generations have not experienced the same kind of political socialization as the younger generations have, as there have been more agents introduced to them such as social media. Additionally, the deep influence of social media is evident as more than a third or 34% of Britain's aged 18-24 have expressed that “social media was likely to influence their vote”. This suggests that as more teens become involved in the different social platforms of social media, the more likely they are to develop negative political attitudes. A third of young people think social media will influence their