Younger Americans better at separating facts from opinion: Pew Research

Younger Americans are better at recognizing factual statements than older Americans, according to the Pew Research Center.

A study examined two groups: 18- to 49-year-olds and people 50 or older.

When presented with five factual statements, those in the younger group identified all five as facts 32 percent of the time. The older group did so with 20 percent accuracy.

When presented with five opinionated statements, those in the younger group identified all five as opinions 44 percent of the time. The older group did so with 26 percent accuracy.

"When looking at the 10 statements individually, younger adults were not only better overall at correctly identifying factual and opinion news statements -- they could do so regardless of the ideological appeal of the statements," according to a post on Pew's website. "This stronger ability to classify statements regardless of their ideological appeal may well be tied to the fact that younger adults -- especially Millennials -- are less likely to strongly identify with either political party."

The post accompanying the data also said that although younger Americans are more digitally savvy, even when correcting for that and for party affiliations, younger adults still were better at recognizing facts.

Pew Research Center, according to the organization's website, is "a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research."