A national survey released by Pew Research Center last week reveals that more than two-thirds of registered independents think Americans today are too easily offended by the language other people use.
According to the survey, 68 percent of independents say that “too many people are easily offended these days over the language that others use.”
On the issue of political correctness, independents align more closely with Republicans — 78 percent of whom agreed that Americans today are too easily offended — than they do with Democrats, of whom a majority said people need to self-censor more often to avoid offending others.
Just 37 percent of Democrats said people are too easily offended, while 61 percent of said “people need to be more careful about the language they use to avoid offending people with different backgrounds.” Less than a third of Independents — 32 percent — and just 21 percent of Republicans said people need to be more careful with the language they use.
On the whole, 59 percent of those surveyed said people today are too easily offended, while 39 percent said people need to be more careful about not offending others.
Among voters ages 18-29, 60 percent said people are too easily offended, while 38 percent said people need to be more careful with the words they use. Younger voters are more drastically split along party lines on the issue of political correctness, according to the survey.
Less than half — 44 percent — of Democrats ages 18-29 said people are too easily offended, compared to 80 percent of similarly-aged Republicans who said the same. Just 19 percent of Republicans in that age group said people need to be more careful with the language, compared to 56 percent of Democrats the same age.
The survey was conducted from June 7 to July 5 using a nationally-representative sample of 4,602 adults.
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