It is fairly well known in sociological circles that trust in government, media, education, and the the press have been declining for decades. Exceptions are the scientific community and the military (rising).
Interestingly, news stories abound as to the “why” of such steady decline in trust. However, explaining the why of any such historical patterns are essentially impossible as causes are likely to have numerous origins, and we are talking about non-controlled studies. Even if those surveyed stated the reasons they believed were the causes of their declining trust, the real causes may be completely unrelated and elusive.
First you can see the decline in the press, education, and medicine.
Likewise, trust in those running organized religion, education, medicine is declining.
Trust in TV news, newspapers, and congress is also declining.
Declining Trust in Government
This topic was so large, it needed a separate article.
Is This Trust Decline Generational?
As you can see here, compared to older generations, the youth trust college professors and science more than older generations, while they distrust religious leaders, police officers, business leaders, public school principals far less; organizations which are hierarchical, disciplinary, and authority-driven in nature. The increased trust in journalists is difficult to agree with though, partly because in Europe its the opposite according to Pew.
Perhaps its because liberals increasing, and conservatives decreasing, trust the news, and younger people are far more likely to be Democrat, but with the growth of belief in “fake news,” starting 2016 I am not sure how to interpret the data, unless we just need a couple more years of reporting.
In a more detailed study, it shows that younger people’s trust in the media is actually the fastest declining group between 1997-2005 and 2007-2018.
It is Not the Institutions That Young People Do Not Trust: It’s Everyone
Each successive generation shows a decline in trust other people altogether.
This Pew study further demonstrates that it is not just a case of decline over time by all groups, but generational change. True, the Silent era population had a decline in trust by almost 1/4, but boomers are relatively unchanged. Gen X is difficult to make out, and millennial just start on the wrong foot altogether, but it seems that each each new generation people simply start with a lower trust factor.
So if young people trust each other less, is it a reflection of themselves? I often think the way we trust or distrust others (or God for that matter) is largely a reflection of how we feel about ourselves.
If each new generation is less trusting of everything and everyone, should we try to fix the system or the children, or both? Is it even fixable? If so, how?
One of my main thesis is that great success almost always brings failure as it leads to over-confidence, ease, and the reduction of pressure that society needs to survive. The generations born 80+ years ago had very different motivations and ethics than those of today.
If success (e.g. the last 80 years) breeds its own decay, and the best cure for it is lean times, then maybe that is simply the best prescription, even though many don’t like to take medicine nor eat their vegetables.
Other Possibly Related Trends
If we are seeing a decline in trust, what other large scale changes are happening simultaneous that may be connected or causal? Here are a couple that come to mind, but I will leave them up to you for interpretation/applicability. The biggest issue though is that the previously discussed “trust” related studies simply do not go back far enough in time.
If people do not trust each other, maybe this means we cannot trust the democratic process either. Instead, aristocracies and dictators would make sense.
Young people do not trust institutions, they do not trust each other, and they do not trust their community+God (or religion). Again, how we trust others and God may be a direct reflection of our internal selves.
Oh, and if younger people increasingly trust, and potentially worship, science and military, then that could become a recipe for disaster if you recall that the Holocaust was really a large military=driven science experiment.
I would like to look at state/regional/global trends for more ideas, but do not have any handy other than a general loss in trust in govt in most countries today, which is on that other govt trust article.
Other Correlating Trends? Let Me Know
I will add them here.