Millennials and Generation Z have a negative view towards the mass media and their economic future, according to a new survey.

Deloitte Poll released its results in May concluding millennials and members of Gen Z around the world feel more pessimistic about the future than any other generation. According to a press release accompanied by the results, the attitude towards the economic and social future are at an all-time low.

The survey included millennials from 42 different countries, and members of Gen Z responded in 10 different countries. In total, there were 16,425 people who participated in the survey, 3,009 of them were Gen Z while 13,416 were millennials.

According to the data, 27% of the respondents expressed they have zero trust in the mass media and do not see it as a reliable source. The results have also said 43% of the respondents said the mass media negatively impacts the world.

Roman Baranov, a sophomore in finance, said some organizations within news media have a lot of bias, and it can be hard to find a reliable source. He said he looks at the captions on stories to see if they are too exaggerated or not and consults other news sources.

“I really go by captions,” Baranov said. “[I try to see] if they are really trying to ‘clickbait’ people into viewing their article or site.”

Julie Roosa, adjunct assistant professor of journalism, said she would like to see the public develop media literacy, which is understanding whether news is credible or not, and journalists need to be transparent in order to build this trust. Roosa said one method to do this is through podcasts, where journalists can explain their process making their articles.  

“If it’s news, it can’t be fake,” Roosa said. “If it’s news that has followed the process, professional news provided by a journalist, it might not be something that somebody agrees with, but that’s much different than being fake.”

Millennials have also expressed a negative outlook towards their economic future. Twenty-six percent of the respondents said they expect their country’s economic situation to improve — that percentage had not been below 45% in the last two years of the study.

The results have also said 43% of millennials think their personal financial situations will decrease or stay the same.

“At least for the United States, for the longest time if you asked people whether they expected to be better off financially than their parents, the answer would be yes,” economics professor Joydeep Bhattacharya said. “In only very recent times has the answer has become no, and I think the data is also suggesting that in actuality that is happening that people are actually worse off than their parents, in financial terms.”

Millennials have also said they are worried the changing work nature will make it harder for them to find jobs, since artificial intelligence (AI) is growing and can perform certain tasks that defined some jobs. Forty-six percent of the respondents have said they are worried about this.

 Chinar Kaul, a senior in computer engineering, said AI should be used to help people in the workforce rather than replace them.

“We talked about in my classes, the difference in the public perception of AI and how people assume that it’s going to take over the world, when in reality AI is just going to assist human jobs and things like that,” Kaul said. “Because there’s no way of designing something like that could actually replace a human, maybe for things like truck driving, self driving cars are coming in, but for most jobs AIs are just going to help you.”

Bhattacharya said soft skills such as communication and creativity are ways for the upcoming generation to keep their jobs.

“Anything creative is not likely to be replaced anytime soon … The whole point is to stay in school longer, make yourself more and more irreplaceable think more of the soft skills of life,” Bhattacharya said.