Radicalisation of older people

[colinthedogfromaccounts]

My dad (late 70s) has gone full gangster conspiracy theorist. His long list of increasingly radical beliefs include:

Chemtrails control us
WHO created the pandemic
The EU is evil.
Big pharma is poisoning us (he has given up all his life saving meds)
Vaccinations are a control mechanism
Bill Gates is responsible for the weather
The Democrats wanted world war
Gaza is not real - it's all made up to persecute the Jews

The list goes on. My worry is that this radicalisation is putting his health at risk, so I would like to really understand the psychology to approach this with as much evidence as possible.

Sources are sketchy online (specifically relating to how and why older people become radicalised) - wondering if anybody has any research based insights into this.

Plenty of research on psychology of CT on Google Scholar, here is just one systematic review https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1075779/full

There are tons of other papers https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=conspiracy+beliefs+psychology&btnG=

but what do you actually want to achieve by reading the research? It won't make your father take his meds again.

Pensioners and social media 🤣
Yep I know a lady mid 70s who constantly shares all these kinds of videos she sees daily on FB. Luckily my own parents do not use social media thank God!

Too much time online perhaps?
What would be funny is if the same people creating content that your parent is watching is also making the opposite content for young people - boycott Israel supporting businesses like Starbucks! change your gender! You are definitely ND! Your food is full of poison! Employers are unreasonable to expect people to come in for 9am ! Etc (they are not my views but I’ve seen them on SM)

My Mum is 86 and thinks that Trump is a twat and DM readers shouldn't be allowed to vote. I'm with Her.

Those fuckin’ Boomers eh? If we’re not out recklessly spending our own money rather than giving it to our entitled brats kids, we’re at home gullibly believing everything we’re told online. Thank god we’ve got all the clever young people on MN to point out where we’re going wrong. 🙄 Seriously this place is getting more depressingly ageist and more narrow-minded and unintelligent every day.

Well, it most certainly does affect adult kids when their parents do daft things like stopping all medication. It's OP who will be picking up the pieces.

There are areas of the media that do target particular demographics, and the ones aimed at older generations do push a lot of right wing myth.

The media / social media also understand this, and adjust what they do accordingly.

Frontal lobe degeneration. Part of brain can* start dying off, affecting areas such as reasoning and empathy. Ironically, it’s the last area to develop as well, so those of us with teenagers and elderly parents are getting it from both sides!

*Can start dying off - not the case for everyone and happens at different rates depending on health and lifestyle factors.

Hahaha, so now older and wiser is not thing anymore. Have some respect for the elderly and may be just do not discard some of the things. It is a fact that the hard left or communists infiltrated all the organisations like the WHO to what end? Cash almost disappeared for good with Covid for instance and who ordered that? To what end and with what excuse?
May be go and check the background experience of all the people who are in charged of these organisations.
Bill Gates backed initiatives to block the sun to prevent climate changes and that was from reputable sources. May be there is some truth in the origin of those conspiracy theories. Before some idiot comes and tells me for the links to proof. Stop being lazy and check yourself. It is all available as public records and reputable newspapers.

As young people are targeted by the left? Why do you think they want to lower the age for voting.

Good for you. My mother is from an earlier generation, first of her family to go to uni and did a STEM degree in an era when 'girls don't do science'.

She has embraced being a grandmother, and couldn't care less that her granddaughter is black (and adopted). This year she has taken up ballet, because she always wanted to do ballet but never had the opportunity. She realised that as she is in her mid 80s she needs to get on and do it if she's going to.

I've reported that one. Hateful.

yup....how DARE we continue to exist.

excuse me, we INVENTED social media.

Hi op,
I understand you're worried about your dad's health and sorry your thread has been derailed by arguments between others and a nasty response to your post. I can't really answer your question although I understand that maybe getting out and meeting people in real life may help lessen things a bit?

It's the internet. My nan is the perfect candidate to get radicalised/develop conspiracy theories - she has lots of spare time, she has visitors but really not enough contact during the day and she's very interested in the news and world events.

However she doesn't conse industrial quantities of YouTube - she knows enough to order a weekly shop online and then appears to put her iPad down after that. Her primary news sources remain the BBC, newspapers, radio. If you started shouting off about chemtrails she'd think you were mad.

For all the handwriting about teens and the internet, I do think older people - maybe retired, maybe in poor health, maybe lonely - are a prime group for getting self radicalised and no one talks about it as much.

Unfortunately, it's not limited to just the elderly and I can't really offer you any advice just thought I'd share that I can relate. During the pandemic, we actually distanced ourselves from friends due to their obsession with this kind of stuff, it was all they talked about and we found it really odd. Another friend who lost his job during Covid and has since spent all his time on YouTube watching conspiracy videos believes all the same non sense. I honestly find it quite concerning and believe it's starting to filter down to to the younger generations.

Now I'm all for people being independent thinkers and doing research to form your own opinions. My family didn't have the Covid vaccinations as it is a new type of vaccine and I didn't feel it has been researched enough, and since we had all actually had Covid by the time it was offered to us, I chose not to take the risk and I'm glad I didn't to be honest. But generally, I believe in vaccines because the evidence proves them to be safe and they're the reason we no longer suffer from things like polio, measles etc. However, recently due to the concern regarding the Covid jabs, people have just completely stopped vaccinating their kids and we are now seeing cases of measles etc. I also know of others that have completely stop all medication and go on to end up seriously ill. It is really concerning and not really sure what can be done about it.

This is what I find odd too, the fact that most people I know that believe in one conspiracy, believe in them all, without being able to explain why.....and are absolutely obsessed with it. It's almost like they're desperate to grab onto an alternative way of thinking. I'm all for thinking outside of the box but I'm yet to hear a convincing argument.

Hopefully, when the better weather comes, they can get out in their gardens so they don’t read/watch all this rubbish.

Neither group has to go to work or look after young children.

Your father has strong views. Very little to do with “older people.”

One can always rely on MN for casual bigotry about age.

It can also be linked to being lonely and spending too much time online.
As the government forced us to do both in 2020, all in the name of saving granny, who is now freezing to death, because people are impoverished. Lots of us felt radicalised, especially as the government kept moving the goalposts by stealth, to maintain the status quo of lockdowns. The "conspiracy theorists" started looking for explanations for the "madness", as most of what the government said didn't make sense, and there was no debate allowed at all. That is a massive danger sign.

I don't believe many of the things on that list. However, in an attempt to find some people who agreed with me that lockdowns caused much more harm than good, I did mix with people who believed everything on that list, and more. I took care to be sceptical about such views, just as I was sceptical about what government and BBC said.

The trouble is, many of us simply don't know who to trust with information. I certainly don't trust the BBC any more, now that we've seen how easily people can be "cancelled" if they say something that doesn't suit the authorities. By the same token, I took care to be sceptical about the "conspiracy theories" that I heard, the most popular one being "the vx which they made us take is population control", as well as the usual ones like chemtrails.

One theory I do believe is that while the virus (and possible danger) was real, somebody in government said "let's seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experiment with exactly how much we can frighten the public, and how compliant they will be", hence the massive campaign of fear, and increasingly absurd rules.

My mum, 71, for better or worse, isn't particularly interested in what's going on in the world so doesn't go for right wing politics or conspiracy theories.

My dad, 75, gets all of his 'news' from The Sun, The Daily Star, and TikTok and has extremely right wing views these days. What always surprises me is that he will thrust his phone into my face with a 'watch this/read this - you won't believe what's happening with migrants in Doncaster', without ever thinking that I might have different politics to him - as someone of a differing generation who has been to university, moved away from where I'm from, spent time living in a large cosmopolitan city and married someone who doesn't come from the same background as me.
It's interesting to see totally different content than any algorithm would suggest for me - and I'm centrist, not a lefty by any measure.

Well I’m old and have opinions. Those opinions may be different to those commonly expressed on mumsnet but I’m entitled to hold them.

I can’t be bothered to express my opinions on mumsnet as it will result in a nasty pile on - I doubt I’m alone in this. The result is that folk here believe there are no other relevant opinions except their own.

and how compliant they will be", hence the massive campaign of fear, and increasingly absurd rules.

How do you make millions of people be compliant? Fear, people were scared and wanted to lock down. It's not a conspiracy, it's logic that the majority of the population had to be on board & willing.