According to a survey of young people ages 16 to 40 — the older of which are known as millennials and the younger Generation Z — that was conducted by Media Insight Project, which is a collaboration between The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute, 79% of those surveyed say they get news every day. 71% of them get that daily news from social media, including Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and increasingly TikTok.
Dr. Alex McFarland of Truth for a New Generation says it does not seem to be making them smarter or more aware.
"Getting news from TikTok not only would skew their knowledge of the world; it actually would skew their cognitive processes and behavior," he submits.
One TikToker, for example, wonders, "Why don't we just print loads of money? Then no one would be poor."
Contributing to the problem is the fact that the top two types of news the two generations consume are celebrity news and food and cooking. But McFarland says despite the widespread lack of depth, when he engages with young people, he talks to them as if they were the most informed and enlightened individuals he has ever met.
"I come into the room assuming that rational people of any age can apprehend truth," he tells AFN, adding that he has little choice.
Quoting authors like Carl F.H. Henry, Jo Lewis, and Gordon Palmer, McFarland warns that an uninformed society is doomed to die.
"Philosophically and socially, most Christians could simply drift with the rest of Americans into the twilight of a great civilization towards neo-paganism, and all that ever was of our Christian America is becoming, at best, a faint and mocking memory," he relays.
45% of the 5,975 surveyed also said they get news each day from traditional sources like television or radio stations, newspapers, and news websites.
