“The young generation are not what they used to be”, “they do not need anything, they are not interested in anything”, “they do not read anything; they only care about their gadgets”. Is everything really so bad? Decades of VCIOM’s experience will help us figure it out.

MOSCOW, December 13, 2016. Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) presents the data of a study devoted to young people.

Myth 1. “The battle  between fathers and sons is eternal”. Turgenev’s conflict is outdated: 68% of Russians are confident that young people seem to get along with the older generation. The number of “grumbles” who think that “old people” and “young people” fail to understand each other is decreasing year-by-year (the share of pessimists was less than one-third (29%) in 2014 compared to 42% in 2004). Only 5% of young people assess their relationships with parents as “cool”, while the remainder still say they are “very close, trustworthy” or “friendly, warm”.

Myth 2. “They do not know what they are doing!” In reality young people’s self-perceptions (those aged 18-34) and the older generation’s perceptions (those aged 35 and over) of young people are almost the same. Today’s young people are regarded to be materially oriented (76% and 75% for each age group, respectively), communicative (75% and 70%), thorough (67% and 59%), active (65% and 55%), and in love with sport (61% and 51%). Nevertheless, young people are considered spendthrifts (55% и 57%) and loafers (54% and 58%). Self-criticism of young people brings hope that they will get over these problems. J

Myth 3.  “Young people are unconcerned; they do not seem to have any problems”. Such problems as dependence on computer games (77%), negative effects of the Internet (75%) are considered by Russians as more common for young generation than alcohol and drug addiction (64%) or conflicts with parents (62%) or peers (61%). Negative effects of computer games and Internet usage are recognized by young people themselves: these problems are reported by respondents aged 18-34 (72% and 69%, respectively).

Myth 4. “They do not care about their country’s history; they have Western influences”.  Most of selfie generation’s representatives aged 18-34 (57%) say that they do not have any idols, no examples to follow except for relatives (8%) or historical figures (7%), if any. Older generation opposes this idea: only 14% of persons aged 35 and over believe that young people have no examples to follow, the only examples for them might be showbiz idols (13%) or video game and book characters (6%).

Myth 5. “Sex, drugs and rock and roll: young people are spoiled and immoral” Indeed, premarital sexual relations are not the forbidden fruit anymore; they are considered to be common (59%) and acceptable not only among young males (66%) but also among young females (61%). However not every young person perceives sexual freedom as a guideline to follow: 16% of girls aged 18-24 do not accept extramarital relations; 37% are ready to have sex only with those young people with who they want to have a family. The attitudes of boys towards sex are rather shallow, but every third (32%) would start sexual relationship only if the relationship gets serious enough.

The VCIOM surveys were conducted in 1989-2016  in 130 settlements, 46 regions and 8 federal districts of Russia, with a sample of 1600 persons representative of the Russian population aged 18 and over according to sex, age, education, type of settlement. The survey was conducted with multi-stage stratified sample based on general rule of walking and quotas at the final selection stage.  The margin of error (taking into account the design effect) with 95% confidence interval does not exceed 3.5%. The survey method is community-based structured face-to-face interviews. Apart from the margin of error, minor changes in question wording and different circumstances arising during the field work should be taken into account.

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