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Mask on face, friend: inside only on screen: How did young people experience the corona pandemic?
Photo: Maskot / DEEPOL / plainpicture
Outdoor restaurants and retail outlets have reopened in many places, and more and more people can look forward to full vaccination protection. And yet: For many schoolchildren, students, trainees and young professionals: normality is still a long way off. The practical parts of the manual training, the exchange in the seminar room, planning the future - all of this is often still impossible.
As part of the #UseTheNews campaign
, SPIEGEL and other media companies asked young people for their opinion
: How do you look at the debates of the past year?
How are you dealing with the situation?
And what do you expect for the future?
The almost 50 entries
convey
subjective assessments that cannot always be verified - but which nonetheless
paint a
clear
picture.
Here are some excerpts.
Patrick, 20, trainee: "I don't want to have to fear the future"
“I'm 20 and very interested in politics. Even if I had other ideas than those that were implemented by the GroKo, I was always quite satisfied with the situation in Germany and Europe - especially in relation to other regions of the world. That has changed fundamentally. Although I was aware beforehand that it was more the last than the first voters and large corporations rather than human rights organizations that shape politics in Germany, I have never felt so obviously left alone as this year.
This year I developed fears about the future.
[...] I worry that after decades of improvement in living conditions - my parents grew up better than theirs and I better than mine - my children and grandchildren are about to deteriorate.
This year I got tired of politics, stopped watching and reading the news every day.
But I am not a pessimist.
I also joined a party this year and would like to help ensure that things turn out differently than I feared.
I don't want to have to fear the future. "
Betty, mid-20s, student: "The feeling of being an unimportant part of this society"
more on the subject
Students in the corona crisis: part-time jobs urgently wantedBy Sebastian Maas
»There are no vaccination concepts or test concepts for lectures at all for students. Should you look for an apartment or would that just be a waste of money if everything is online again? Where do you look for a part-time job? Can you hope for a semester abroad? What if financially it runs out again? What if the parents get sick or lose their jobs?
It helped me personally that I am now [...] politically active.
The feeling of being an unimportant part of this society has encouraged me to do more for my generation and to make ourselves more visible, especially among the elderly.
This is the only way I can hope not to be overlooked or to be pushed to the back of the list of priorities with the assumption that they are going to work somehow.
Unfortunately, what will stay with me for a long time is the frustration with the old decision-makers in Germany. "
Barbara, 18, schoolgirl: »I want everyone to see us«
“I was convinced from the start that it was the right thing to protect and vaccinate the elderly first.
I wanted to show solidarity by giving these people the privilege to have a vaccination.
And so do I.
But this solidarity, which I - like all other young people - showed others, will not be returned to us in any way.
"Solidarity?
Seems to be a one-way street for some. "
Schoolgirl Barbara
I can hardly put into words how I find it that people over 60 refuse to get any vaccine other than Biontech, even though AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are also approved and recommended for them. With the consequence that everyone else out of need to get a vaccination at all has to be content with the controversial one. Although there can be severe side effects. Solidarity? Seems to be a one-way street to some.
I am also not saying that we boys should be given preference.
But now that the majority of the elderly are protected, I want everyone to have equal opportunities.
Because every party has good reasons for a quick vaccination.
And I want us to be seen.
That we are taken seriously.
Don't just put us in the back.
Because we are your children!
We are the future!
Your future too!
And we have the same right! "
Jann, 24, student: "That makes you really desperate on some days"
“I think it's really bad that universities are completely ignored in all of the opening debates.
Are we really less important than hardware stores or casinos?
Politicians of all stripes really don't give a good picture when it comes to dealing with young people.
And they don't even seem to notice.
On some days that really makes you despair. "
Kirsten, 24, works in retail: "I think it's bold that I still haven't been vaccinated"
“Since I have a lot of customers around me, I think it's bold that I still haven't been vaccinated.
I found the rule stupid anyway that group three only included employees in grocery stores, as they don't have as much customer contact as I do now.
I'm still waiting for an answer from the vaccination center and I'm on the waiting list at my GP.
That bothers me because other areas or people who have no previous illnesses and who work in the office have already been vaccinated.
I don't understand any of that. "
Yannick, 23, student: "The feeling of being forgotten"
more on the subject
Student protests in the pandemic: They want to go back to the University of Helene Flachsenberg, Kristin Hermann, Katharina Hölter and Sophia Schirmer
Young adults in the pandemic: everyone is suffering.
A comment by Sophia Schirmer
Students in the corona crisis: Dear politics, why are you ignoring us? A cry for help from Lukas Kissel
“What bothers me about the whole subject is not so much the fact that students can't get vaccinated yet or that the clubs still have them. What bothers me more is that you have the feeling of being forgotten and of not playing an important role in society. You feel a bit like a second class person. A prime example of this is the statement of “my” Prime Minister Kretschmann, who said in March that there is no reason for students to become depressed. For me, this simply shows the ignorance of the predominantly older politics towards the young. We are the ones who just want to party, should show solidarity and can sometimes do without a vacation for a year. [...]
I don't think it's right to complain and nag all the time, no one, not even the politicians, are infallible.
It just bothers me that we are not listened to and that our interests are constantly being ignored.
Without a lobby it will probably stay that way. "
Isabella, student: "Above all, it seems to fail because of the will"
"It's harder to sit out a pandemic when you're just starting to build a life."
Isabella student
“It's just harder to ride out a pandemic when you're just starting to build a life.
What particularly bothers me is that classroom exams with hundreds of participants are usually possible even with extremely high numbers of cases, while classroom seminars with very few participants are categorically excluded.
Above all, it seems to fail because of the will to include the needs of students in the semester planning.
For example, this semester I have a seminar in which there are seven of us with the lecturer, three of whom are fully vaccinated.
We could meet privately in this constellation without any problems, but the seminar has to take place digitally. "
Miro, 16, pupil: "It is not we young people who have first priority"
»Offices with hundreds of people are allowed, my grandparents meet again for the regulars' table and even the Europapark is open again under the pretext of a 'model project'.
As a student who has been at home continuously since Christmas and who is supposed to learn exactly the same material in homeschooling that you usually don't understand in school, this really gets on my nerves.
I give it to my grandparents and I would find it just as a shame if Europapark had to file for bankruptcy.
Nevertheless: In the last few months, politics has shown that it is not we young people who have first priority.
And not second or third either.
[...] The missed school trips, parties and shared breaks cannot be made up for or made up for later.
That’s a shame.
And it's all the more a shame when you consider how solidarity and considerate we have been for over a year, wasting what is supposedly the coolest time of our life. "
About the #UseTheNews campaign:
You can take part here
Call of the #UseTheNews initiative: Open up, vaccinate, enjoy freedom - and where are we?
DER SPIEGEL, Hamburger Abendblatt, Ostfriesen-Zeitung and NDR want to use the #UseTheNews campaign to make young people's view of Corona visible, for example by publishing their statements online, in the newspaper and on radio and TV.
The call is part of the long-term research project #UseTheNews under the direction of the German Press Agency (dpa).
Together with partners from science, public institutions and society, we want to research and promote the use and competence of news in the digital age.
And find out what demands young people in particular have on the media.
