Albertans will be voting on 10 crucial questions that could shape the province’s future. However, some worry that the questions’ complexity may be problematic for young voters.
Research shows that the widespread use of social media platforms has changed how people, especially younger generations, consume information, especially since short-form content is now the norm over comprehensive and detailed accounts.
“Young people, like 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds, how they think about information is structured by how it’s presented to them,” said James Cresswell, a psychology professor at Ambrose University.
Complex-worded questions may pose a barrier for many young voters because they are used to concise and simple information delivery.
“Instead of having the capacity to step back and look at the web, their decision-making is going to be based on what we call mental shortcuts,” said Cresswell.
Many of the questions used strong language instead of plain terms, and for Clyde Natan, a first-year interior design student at Mount Royal University, she had to read the question three times before she could understand what it meant.
“A lot of (young) people would be discouraged to even vote for this,” Natan said.
When it comes to the mental load an average person can handle, Jemmy Suthandiradas, assistant professor of psychology at Ambrose University, noted that human working memory is limited. An individual working with high cognitive workload would struggle to maintain consistent attention.
“Simple sentences help— too many words (long sentences) saying multiple things might change the judgement of the questions,” Suthandiradas wrote in an email.
Both experts agreed the ballot questions are phrased in overly complicated terms, suggesting that young voters in particular could be put off from participating in voting.