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A private bill to give 16-year olds the vote is back in Parliament (piefed.ca)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/canadapolitics@lemmy.ca
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https://www.parl.ca/documentviewer/en/44-1/bill/C-210/first-reading

Elections Canada research shows most adult voters oppose the measure: "Seven in ten respondents, 72 percent, disagreed."

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[–] [S] 5 points 1 year ago* (10 children)

I understand the logic, that Parliament is making decisions that is going to affect the future lives of our youth, but I would worry about young people who have grown up devouring a steady diet of TikTok, youtube and Instagram making voting decisions before they've really understood how much the messages they ingest have been massaged, curated and shaped in order to manipulate them. There's far too much rage baiting, shilling and astroturfing on socials but the hard fact is that the really effective stuff is getting harder to discern and AI and algorithms are making it harder and harder to figure out what's real and what's not.

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  • [+] 12 points 1 year ago (8 children)
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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    The average 16 year old doesn't give a fuc I'd say even more then the average adult.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago* (1 child)

    This. And I used to teach that age group. They seemed to be very invested in gaming, the opposite sex, celebrities, what their friends were doing, social media and music. Not sure those are the people who give two seconds thought to politics and there were a few who were socially aware and active on some key issues, but in general, nope, they're far too distracted to care enough to even vote.

    It takes time and these days, it takes some training to learn discernment in media messaging. Those skills come over time.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Fair question. Whether or not some age groups are more susceptible to propaganda is an empirical question. If you know of data, please share.

    Critical thinking keeps developing into the early 20s, so not have the full supply of that is a potential knock against younger voters.

    Something I've seen from my more conservatively-oriented family members is that significant financial and domestic difficulties help them see the falsehoods in right-wing propaganda. When things are better, they might be more amenable to anti-immigrant talk (and the like) to prop up their ego. But when they're truly struggling (with affordability issues) they seem to see the irrelevance between their real issues and the parties the Right tries to scapegoat (e.g., immigrants; not billionaires, neoliberalism, etc.). If this theory holds, then not facing affordability issues due to living with parents could be another knock against young voters if it makes them more susceptible to right-wing propaganda.

    Those are just speculations. I'd love to see some data!

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    At 16 I certainly would have voted like my parents because they had made me think the same way they did and any other way was wrong.

    In hindsight, every choice they made was the wrong choice that brought in further conservative politics, austerity and the destruction of our social safety net.

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