The world's favourite pastime?

You know you’ve been in Berlin a while when you start planning the best place to exit the S-Bahn. I lived near Greifswalder Straße S-Bahnhof long enough to know that if I board the S-Bahn at the back, I would undoubtedly have less chance of finding a seat but I’d be closer to the stairs when it came to getting off at Messe Nord and changing to the U-Bahn. Once on the platform for the U-Bahn, I’d head immediately to the west side of the station, as this provides the best exit route at Theodor-Heuss-Platz. Nonetheless, I was always bombarded by school children and, unless I sped up my pace, I invariably became entangled in the swarm und had to fight my way ahead.

But back to the S-Bahn for now. Possibly the only place where I felt alone even though I was surrounded by hundreds of people. There are a number of activities one can pursue on the S-Bahn, each of them having their own merits and limitations. Perhaps the most common of these is the good old traditional pastime of reading a book. Once, when a relative came to visit, one of the first things he said as we boarded the S-Bahn was “everyone is reading a book!” He wasn’t exaggerating. Literally everyone in our carriage had some kind of book, whether it was a novel or a textbook or perhaps even a German phrase book. I myself have also become quite a fan of this, though as I said, everything has its limitations. If, like me, you travel during the rush hour, the chances are you’re often without a seat and nine times out of ten, you find yourself standing so close to someone that you can smell their body odour (and often also what they had for breakfast). As five or six people all try to reach for the same bar to hold on to, there is an inevitable (and rather complex) arrangement of elbows and underarms, interweaving and yet politely avoiding contact. Often the result of this is that one simply cannot find a comfortable position to carry on with that chapter that is just so engrossing. Still, being packed like sardines into an S-Bahn does keep you warm in the winter.

Let’s just imagine for a moment however that it isn’t 7:15am but rather some strange time in the afternoon on a Tuesday when the S-Bahn is scarcely populated. Sitting down on a two-seater with space to stretch your legs out, one can really delve into that chapter and get some serious reading done. Though we are constantly told not to judge a book by its cover, it is of course possible to judge a person by their book. Not only can one discern which language a person speaks (or perhaps more accurately, which language they are trying to learn, as is often the case in Berlin), one can also make a guess at a person’s character. There are the middle-aged (and dare I say it, single) women who devour trashy “chick-lit” and the nerdy-looking 20-something males who are hooked on the latest sci-fi offering. Then of course, there are the young and impressionable teenagers who like to be seen reading Nietzsche or some other politically and/or philosophically radical author. That is often the case when trying to infer what kind of people are hiding behind those books. Are they genuinely interested in what they are reading or do they just want to give the impression that they are? The latest trend appears to be book sleeves that hide the cover of the book, giving little away (and probably much favoured by those interested in erotic fiction, though we will never know this for sure).

A similar conundrum exists with newspaper readers. One can never really tell whether the person struggling to cope with the enormous pages of the Financial Times is actually the least bit interested in economics or if indeed they somehow feel the need to purchase and be seen reading such a newspaper, as it seems to complement their Armani business suit. For this reason, I feel more at ease with the tabloid readers.

Another favoured S-Bahn activity is listening to music. Much like book-reading, there is much to be discerned from a person not just from the kind of music they choose to listen to but also the way in which they go about it. There are those that have the latest chart compilation on a budget mp3-player and simply put it on shuffle. Then are those with iPods, iPhones, iPads and the like, who are selective about the music they hear on their journey and will probably have a pre-determined playlist entitled “auf dem Weg nach der Arbeit” as well as a corresponding one for the journey home. There are variations in volume (ranging from quiet private listening to ear-piercingly loud), genre of music (oh how stereotypical it is that those black-haired, black-clothed youngsters listen to emo) and – perhaps most importantly – choice of headphones, with the largest ones seemingly being reserved only for the most serious of music fans.

Alongside chatting on the phone (much to the annoyance of fellow passengers), there are less common but by no means less enjoyable activities that can be readily performed on the S-Bahn. The daily application of make-up, the knitting of scarves, the breastfeeding of babies. Yes, the S-Bahn offers a whole manner of possibilities. But perhaps the best part of all this, the activity which must not be overlooked, is the pleasure one gets when one simply takes a moment to look over that book, or peep above that huge newspaper or switch off those headphones. Indeed, the best activity of all requires very little in the way of props and can be performed regardless of whether the S-Bahn is cram-packed or running during the ghost hours. That’s right everyone: people-watching.

Young and yearning: the harsh realities faced by Generation Y

The youth unemployment rate in "Great" Britain has been hovering around 20% for the last few months now. Social scientists have been good at noticing the trends, categorising the indicators and documenting the empirical research, but what about the things that simply cannot be tabularised or illustrated by colourful pie charts? What about the emotions, hardships and constant setbacks faced by today's youth as they try to navigate the worlds of work, education or property?
 

Put simply, the children of the 80s and 90s - described by demographers as "Generation Y" - are lost. They don't know who they are, want they want or where they are going.
 

Whilst their parents, many of whom are of the baby boomer demographic, might have had to suffer the health consequences of being e.g. a coal miner, at least this was a clear cut job with a clearly defined role and purpose. A coal miner mines coal. The end product is tangible. The purpose is clear. And on top of that, there was the possibility to mix with other people in the same profession and subscribe to a particular shared identity. The under-30s of today, on the other hand, often don't even have a "profession" as such. When asked what they do for a living - if they are indeed lucky enough to have a job at all - the answer usually doesn't start with "I'm a..." but rather "I kind of do this..." or " you know when..., well I do that" (in some instances, even just the word "call centre" suffices). Their work, which in Britain is almost exclusively in the tertiary sector, is invisible. When searching for a job, young adults are often left perplexed and confused by the job titles, which often feature huge chunks of jargon such as "SEO Executive" or "CRM Assistant" (in case you were wondering, that's search engine optimisation and customer-relationship-management, whatever that means). Even the whole process of applying for a job is alienating. Online application processes and platforms such as XING often leave applicants feeling inadequate and incompetent. To add to this changing world, where manufacturing is dead and services dominate, the recession has meant that recruiters often set out a long list of requirements that most young people cannot fulfil.
 

And why can they not fulfil them? Often it's because at school they were told to do whatever they enjoyed and whatever they thought they were good at. Unfortunately, in today's harsh world, this doesn't get you very far. Whereas their parents - either through family pressure or choice - would have chosen a specific career path at an early age and then proceeded to follow it, most of today's young adults received inadequate career guidance. Though apprenticeships are now slowly being re-introduced, most Generation Y-ers were not given this opportunity and so they have pursued one of two paths: they either left school at 16 and were able to find reasonably good employment but with little prospect of progress or development, or they went to university, came out with a Bachelor's degree in history (because they enjoyed it obviously, and because they were told that university graduates - regardless of degree - always get the best jobs) and then ended up doing the same or similar job as their peers who quit education after their GCSEs. And that's if they're lucky.
People often speak of "soft skills", but where are the people with the "hard" skills? Not counting the medical profession and what remains of the engineering sector, I'd say that nobody has them. What happened to the butchers and bakers and candlestick makers? This is what the identity crisis can be traced back to. Without clear roles and purposes, people are not able to identify themselves as being something. It is not surprising that extremist groups such as the EDL or the BNP have thrived in recent years: their supporters, with no prospect of belonging to a profession, are senselessly struggling to cling on to whatever it is that somehow binds them together as people. The same can be said of the rise in gang culture.
 

Combined with the effects of the rampant materialism and unabashed consumerism that not only dominates but is in fact encouraged in our society today, life for a young adult in the 21st century can be quite bleak. No wonder many youths feel the need to drink themselves half to death every weekend. Any optimism, enthusiasm or ambition that is experienced when leaving education - whether that be high school, sixth form or university - is often extinguished by the obstacles and glass ceilings, not to mention poor wages, that are encountered by most young people today. Those that are fortunate enough to be in some kind of employment are often over-qualified and under-paid for the work they are doing. Their friends are in similar or perhaps even worse situations, so there exists an attitude of "put up and shut up". However, is it really right that someone in their mid-20s should complacently accept their job and abandon their ambition?
With no clear avenue of progression or opportunities for advancement (except for becoming a "team leader" at the local call centre), the youth of today are left with little to aspire to. The concept of "success" is something that is far removed from their daily lives. Unlike their parents who were able to take advantage of cheap property prices during the 80s and early 90s, most under-30s have been forced into a lifetime of renting - often at extortionate rates - and can only dream of one day owning their own property. Even their cars, if they drive one, are largely financed by credit.
 

What long-term effects is this having? For those that exhibited intelligence during their education years and were told by their teachers that they had the potential to go on to do big things, the last decade has proved to be a big smack in the face. And the saddest part is that any intelligence they did have has probably been lost now to some dead-end job that has induced regression and degeneration and in some cases led to depression. Even those that were not labelled as "intelligent" at school are suffering mentally from the consequences of being under-challenged and under-paid at work. Once ambition has been lost, it is very difficult to recover. Self-confidence, not to mention self-awareness, is extremely low amongst many youths. It is easy for precedents to be set that will carry on throughout their lives, and quite possibly also down to the next generation.
 

And so, as already said, the youths of today are lost. They yearn for opportunities and outlets to express their skills and talents but are rewarded only with menial jobs that lack the challenges or tangible end products that are necessary to feel like they are contributing to their community and to society at large. And so they remain in a constant limbo - stuck in the phase where they can just about pay their bills, afford a couple of drinks on a Friday night and, if they're fortunate enough, a cheap holiday to Spain once a year. But beyond that phase is the unknown. Aspiring beyond that is not possible. And that's sad.