The National Institute of Youth (INJUV), of the Ministry of Social Development, published the results of the survey “Perceptions of Youth on Science and Technology”, which gathered 1,010 cases of young people from every region in the country and different socioeconomic levels.

Around 82% of young Chileans think that advances in technology and science may be useful for their profession or job, and 63% that technology is useful in healthcare and the prevention of diseases.

Furthermore, 85% of youth think that science and technology are making our lives easier and more comfortable, while 84% believe that in the next 20 years this development will bring along several benefits for the country.

As regards the risks linked to scientific and technological development, 49% of the young population think that in the next 20 years it will lead to few situations danger for the country, while 7% believe it will pose no danger at all.

On the item “Perception of Science and Technology”, linked to the labor world, 58% of young people say they agree with the idea that the application of science and technology will lead to the loss of certain jobs.

Nicolás Farfán, National Director of INJUV, said that “science and technology usually go together with the concepts of youth and innovation. Young people are responsible for taking the lead in both areas, which in the future will make us grow as a country, taking us to new states of knowledge and advances in every area”.

He added that “even though the survey also shows that young people believe that science and technology may cause the loss of jobs, we must not forget that, despite robotics and automation of certain tasks that used to be developed by people, behind every productive process, there are always people. Anyway, this leaves us with a pending challenge, which is to keep on working developing innovation and training our youth”.

Around 17% of young people think that scientific research must focus on the development of renewable energy sources.

“We have detected in the survey a factor that is already a constant: the strong commitment that the young population has made with the preservation of the environment”, said Farfán.

He added that “as a matter of fact, these numbers are concordant with our 2016 survey on youth employability, where 18% said that they would not work at a place that damages the environment”.

The survey “Perceptions of Youth of Science and technology” reveals that 43% of the respondents said that the scientific and technological education they received is regular, while 24% rate it as poor and 11% as very poor.

Around 78% say they are very familiar with the use of computers and notebooks, while 73% say they are familiar with the use of the internet to find scientific information.