“Dad, when I grow up, I want to be a square too”: The famous advert in which a little girl tries to convince her old-punk father of the advantages of a building society savings contract is now 20 years old. But in a way it describes the beginning of a long-lasting trend of “regrounding”: the world view of young people today is mostly shaped by realism and down-to-earthness.
This is the result of the Sinus Youth Study, which is carried out every four years on behalf of the Federal Agency for Civic Education. Security, stability and safety will still be more important for most young people in 2024 than breaking away, changing and experimenting, it says. The decline in the hedonism that once characterized youth and the associated loss of importance of youth subcultures are therefore continuing.
“In view of the constant crises, the desire for security has become more important,” says co-author Tim Gensheimer from the Sinus Institute. “For the personal future, the normal, middle-class biography is still the guiding principle for most young people. They want to find a place in society, a happy relationship, children, pets, their own home and a job that brings in enough money for a carefree life.”
For the study, the Sinus Institute conducted several hours of in-depth interviews with 72 young people aged between 14 and 17 from all walks of life. A process that allows the institute to provide an overview of the different worlds in which young people move. “The spectrum here ranges from traditional, middle-class to consumer-materialistic to neo-ecological young people, each with their own values, attitudes and lifestyles,” says the institute’s presentation.
The largest group are the “adaptive” people: the “performance and family-oriented modern mainstream with a high willingness to adapt,” as the study puts it. Young people who combine basic bourgeois values and virtues with a willingness to achieve, fun and self-realization. “They are not creating plans for a better world, but rather trying to find their place in the middle of society. They are self-confident but unobtrusive. These young people are sure that they can achieve a lot in life with ambition and self-confidence.”
The smaller groups include the “precarious”, whose everyday lives are characterized by the struggle for normality and keeping up, and often by failure. The “experimentalists”, for whom freedom, individuality and adventure are particularly important, or the success and lifestyle-oriented “expeditives” are also rather poorly represented in terms of numbers.
“Socioculturally, young people are not a homogenous group,” says Sinus Managing Director Marc Calmbach. Nevertheless, there are basic values that almost everyone can agree on: social security with family and friends, tolerance and empathy, but also self-determination and willingness to perform.
And: Despite the multiple crises in the world, which are also making young people increasingly depressed, for most people, personal hopes for the future dominate over their worries. This is a surprising finding for Calmbach. “The crises are piling up, and young people are maintaining their optimism that they can cope with them, which is astonishing.”
Politics, on the other hand, has little importance in the lives of young people. Many feel alienated by it, and the challenges of the times do not lead to increased political interest or even engagement, says Gensheimer. He quotes the example of a 16-year-old girl saying: “Politics is not my thing at all. If there is something important, my mom tells me about it.”
This is consistent with the information behavior of 14 to 17-year-olds. Social media is the most important source of information for most teenagers. This also applies to political news, which is usually received by chance – as “bycatch,” so to speak, said Calmbach.
“Most young people do not actively search for information, but assume that information that interests them will reach them via the algorithm.” Young people are aware that a lot of fake news is spread on social media. However, most of them simply rely on their “common sense,” the study says.
For Thomas Krüger, head of the Federal Agency for Civic Education, this is both a warning and a task. “There is great optimism that disinformation can be filtered out. But in reality, this does not work so well.” It is therefore the task of civic education to place serious offers for young target groups on social media.
