Young people think elections don’t work and the UK should be ruled by a dictator instead.
And one in three think the army should be put in charge.
The worrying lack of faith in democracy is revealed in a new survey by polling company craft for Channel 4.
It found 52% of people aged 13 to 27, the so-called Generation Z, agreed with the statement that “the UK would be a better place if a strong leader was in charge who does not have to bother with parliament and elections”.
The idea that the UK would be better off “if the army was in charge” was backed by 33%.
In addition, the survey found 47% agreed that “the entire way our society is organised must be radically changed through revolution”.
A Channel 4 report called Gen Z: trends, truth and trust will be published at a Royal Television Society event on Thursday.
Many young men are also deeply opposed to feminism and feel efforts to create equality for women have left them treated unfairly.
The survey found 45% of men and boys aged 13 to 27 agree that “we have gone so far in promoting women’s equality that we are discriminating against men”, while a similar number agreed “when it comes to giving women equal rights, things have gone far enough”.
“Manosphere” influencer Andrew Tate is popular with 42% saying they trust his social media posts as much as traditional journalism.
The report quotes one 25-year-old man from Cornwall who said he felt targeted because he was a “regular straight white man who has had a cultural advantage in the past. It’s swinging back the other way, to a point where we potentially risk discriminating against us in favour of people in minority groups.”
Channel 4 chief executive Alex Mahon said young people “are media savvy, switched on and smart, but have been exposed to the full force of the polarising, confusing and sometimes wilfully misleading nature of social media since they were born.”
