To the Editor:

I would like to thank you for your excellent opinion piece in the Nov. 22 issue of the The Smoky Mountain News.  

Prior to the election I had a conversation with a friend of mine, a young college student. She expressed some positive feelings toward Hillary Clinton but said she was voting for Trump because Clinton was not a Christian. I asked her why she believed that. She seemed to have concluded this from listening to her boyfriend and social media. 

I presented her with what I felt were concrete examples to contradict her assumption. In response, she dismissed my examples in favor of her own set of “facts.” 

This example reinforced my concern that we have raised a generation of young Americans seriously lacking critical thinking skills. Karl Marx wrote that “Religion is the opium of the masses.” I am beginning to think that social media is the new opiate.

Margery Abel

Franklin