Anna Rosling Rönnlund shows teens what their world is really like

Dip your toe into any news feed and you risk drowning in a tidal wave of conflicts, disasters and climate change. If you instead put your trust in international reports, we live in an era characterized by reduced global inequality, increased life expectancy and numerous other advances that are unprecedented in human history. The obvious question is who is right? And what should we really think about our own and the world's future?

“What we do know is that many Swedish teenagers view development far more gloomily than they ought to. But they are not alone. Our research shows that most people live with an image of the world to be more frightening, violent and hopeless than it actually is. Much of this stems from ignorance about the rapid development that is underway in everything from education to public health. Therefore, we must talk to our young people about what the world is actually like,” says Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Vice-President of the Gapminder foundation.

Generation Z is the first to grow up with the world in their hands. In the constant flow of communication that new technology offers, many choose social media over established channels as their source of news. Here the pace is indeed more intense, but these are also platforms where disinformation and propaganda spread both the fastest and the furthest. A study at Uppsala University confirm that most young people aim to stay updated, but also that the material they encounter often appears overwhelming and contributes to anxiety about both present and future.

“When you seek information, it is good to do so with equal parts trust and questioning. Some good rules of thumb are to choose sources carefully and trust what is credible, but at the same time keep a critical eye. For example, does a scientific study have a sponsor, and what do the statistics it presents actually imply? In addition, we must remember that major progress rarely have the same news value in the media as alarmist reports, and here schools have an important task to provide students with knowledge in source verification, “ says Emma Frans, researcher and author of True, false or in between?

If we stick to sponsor-free reports, we can, among many things, conclude that extreme poverty in the world was halved during the first 20 years of this millennium. We also learn that 89 percent of all children are vaccinated against at least one disease during their first year of life. Likewise, 90 percent start school, which in turn has contributed to literacy rates being higher today than ever. But when Gapminder tests the public's knowledge of this, the answers are more reminiscent of a worldview based on Tintin in the Congo.

“Whether we ask business leaders, university professors or high school students, the results are often worse than chance. This is because changes are happening faster than we can keep up with, but also because of how our brains work. It is our innate instincts to notice the bad over the good, to divide things into two groups with a gap in between and to make hasty generalisations. But when we instead base our opinions on strong, supporting facts, a more balanced picture emerges that helps us feel hope for the future,” says Anna Rosling Rönnlund.

Many psychologists argue that people experience difficulty to grasp and engage in what feels distant. But with today's global communication, what happens on the other side of the globe can appear just as concrete as what goes on next door. Therefore, more and more people consider it a matter of both solidarity and responsibility to increase their knowledge of the world, and research confirms that students who learn about global issues are more than twice as likely to understand the importance of personal commitment to accomplish changes.

“We know how much adolescents view of the world means to their willingness to engage in the future, and when teenagers realize how much is actually improving, they often find the motivation to contribute to continued improvement. Therefore, it is an very important opportunity for Gapminder to meet Uppsala's high school students at Kunskap För Livet, answer their questions about global trends and, not least, contribute to their curiosity about the world they live in.”

Text: Magnus Alsne, photo: Jann Lipka, Johan Bodin, Mikael Wallerstedt