Almost half of the young people believe that the pandemic was created by powerful people who want to rule the world
Almost half of the young people, ie 43%, believe that the pandemic caused by the coronavirus was created by a small group of powerful people in order to rule the world, says the executive director of the Youth Education Forum (YEF), Dimitar Nizamovski, who in the show "360 degreesCommented on the results of the study on the socio-political participation of young people in Northern Macedonia, prepared by the Westminster Foundation, in cooperation with YEF.
One in three young people, or 33 percent, are ready to be vaccinated against covid-19, and as many as 46 percent would not be vaccinated, while 20 percent have not yet decided whether to get vaccinated, the survey shows.
Nizamovski says that it is necessary to work on media literacy, because the results of the study showed that young people in Macedonia are very susceptible to misinformation.
"We have noticed that almost every second young person is subjected to conspiracy theories where the virus is thought to have been artificially created by a laboratory by a small group of powerful people in order to control the world. Here, among other things, we can see the role and level of media literacy among young people. That is, whether and how familiar they are so that they can recognize a lie from the news, ie facts versus misinformation. " he says.
He added that there is an initiative that will be worked on together with the Ministry of Education and Science, and refers to media literacy.
Nizamovski also mentioned the data on how many young people are ready to be vaccinated against covid-19, ie it is about 33 percent of the respondents, while 46 percent would not be vaccinated.
"Methodologically, this was done at a time when we still did not have vaccines against covidium and all of us as citizens were in uncertainty as to when the vaccines will be procured, which may be an additional factor that influenced this percentage. "However, that fact also worries us, how much young people believe in science and how much they are willing to put individual responsibility versus collective responsibility, which is even more worrying if we look at society as a whole." says Nizamovski.
