"Schneider's glasses"

Yes, in the past…

Young people would rather travel back in time than into the future. "Krone" columnist Robert Schneider can't quite understand this. If kids were to travel back to the 1980s, they would not only lose their sight and hearing...

Two years ago, "Der Spiegel" commissioned a survey from the renowned opinion research institute Civey, which asked more than 4,000 young people about their views on working life, consumption and money. This revealed an astonishing picture of 16 to 29-year-olds. Friends and family are more important than a job, saving is the order of the day and retirement provision is a very high priority.

"Biedermeier"
Cologne psychologist Stephan Grünewald, who interpreted this study, spoke of a kind of new "Biedermeier". He went on to state: "We have long observed that the priorities when choosing a career are: Vacation, regular job, fixed structure with caring superiors."

Are today's young people no longer willing to take risks? Are they all bores?

The same agency has now launched another survey, two years on, to find out whether more confidence has perhaps crept into the basic attitude. The question was whether young people would prefer to travel into the future or the past if they were to travel back in time. Almost half opted for the past. Everything was better in the past.

I think to myself that if young people today could travel back to, say, the early 1980s, they would lose their sight and hearing, but especially their smell. There is hardly a healthy tree left. Forest dieback is taking on huge proportions. The smell of petrol and diesel on the streets, especially in big cities, is unbearable.

Every fifth unemployed person at this time is between 20 and 25 years old. Sexual orientation is a taboo subject. People prefer not to come out as gay or lesbian. And in the early nineties, an up-and-coming young CSU politician by the name of Horst Seehofer waffles on about camps for HIV-infected people. Yes, everything used to be better. Or was it?