Green Peace March in Madrid 2015 Photo: OsvaldoGago/Wikimedia
Young people all over the world feel climate change, conflicts and corruption pose serious challenges but they also believe in the power of technology for well-being of humanity.
The opinions stem from a survey of more than 31,000 millennials from over 180 countries, who expressed their views in the Global Shapers Annual Survey 2017 on some of the key issues including the use of technology, economy, values, career and governance.
For the third successive year, climate change remains an overriding concern with millennials, while corruption, inequality and a lack of career and economic opportunities are seen as the most pressing challenges.
A new and related insight this year is that 91% of respondents agree or strongly agree that science has proven that humans are responsible for climate change, the WEF said in a news release.
The other issues that make up the top three global issues according to young people are: Large-Scale Conflicts/Wars in second place, and Inequality in third place, it added.
On technology, optimism beats out pessimism since a 79% majority of millennials sees technology as creating more jobs than it is destroying, say 79%.
Nevertheless, just 26% trust a robot could make decisions on their behalf, according to the findings.
“Artificial intelligence is voted as the “next big technology trend”. And the top three sectors that could benefit from technology disruption are: education (20%), health (15%) and manufacturing (14%).
“However the results show that young people’s enthusiasm for technology has limits: 44% rejected the idea of having an implant in their skin to increase their capabilities.”
Among the most favorably viewed destinations for economic and career growth are the United States (18%), Canada (12%) and the UK (10%).
In the context of global connectedness and multicultural coexistence, over 78% young people say they would welcome refugees in their own neighborhood.
The survey, which was available in 14 languages, surveyed young people from 186 countries and territories.
