From November 29th to 30th, the 15th China Youth Development Forum (2019) was held in Beijing. China Youth Daily China Youth Network Trainee reporter Yang Baoguang/photo
Ten years ago, Lian Si led the team members to discover the "low-income colony of college graduates"-"ant tribe" in big cities. In the past 10 years, he led the members of the research group to pay close attention to the development and changes of contemporary youth, and went deep into 32 youth groups such as "ant tribe" and "worker bee" to understand their living conditions and listen to their core demands.
"Analyzing the data of these youth groups, we deeply feel that under the background of social transformation, urban youth groups show obvious new characteristics in terms of communication methods, work forms, life needs and pressure troubles." At the 15th China Youth Development Forum (2019) jointly sponsored by China Youth Research Center, Central Youth League School and China Youth Research Association, Lian Si, a professor from university of international business and economics, released the research results of his research group. Based on the research of 32 youth groups, he summarized some overall characteristics of the overall situation of contemporary youth and tried to paint contemporary urban youth from different dimensions.
New ways of communication: being alone but not alone, socializing in circles and rebuilding identity
"When a rural youth goes to the city, he feels isolated." Lian Si said that it is this "isolated" modernization situation that makes young people yearn for building a new "community", and the development of Internet technology provides this possibility.
While maintaining self-awareness and exploring self-interest, young people are also pursuing new circle connections. This trend is called "independence but not loneliness". Lian Si explained that the so-called "independence" means keeping one’s own ideas, maintaining private space and not wearing a mask; And "not lonely" means longing for attention, longing for someone to share topics and emotions, and gaining communication and recognition in the community.
Young people often gather in circles with their interests and preferences, creating their own discourse system and becoming the originator of many online popular cultures. In Lian Si’s view, it is this circle that gives young people a sense of belonging, purpose, meaning and acceptance.
"We saw Tik Tok, and some hand-held videos can quickly form a self-organizing platform for hundreds of thousands or even millions of people." Lian Si found that the circle socialization with hobbies as the node has begun to show its edge among young people, and there are various circles such as "military", "antique" and "virtual idol".
"The style and taste attributes contained in the circle itself are gradually dissolving the traditional three-dimensional class division standard of’ power, prestige and money’ and reshaping the group identity and sense of belonging of young people." Lian Si believes that more and more young people are beginning to recognize each other according to different tastes and styles, judge "circles" and reach identity.
New working forms: weak dependence, fragmented energy and time scarcity.
Lian Si’s research group found that with the national economic and social development, the motivation of young people’s survival has been promoted from "surviving" to "meaningful", and the reason for working is no longer "making money" but "value".
The research group found that the career development and work form of contemporary youth have been deeply branded by the times, showing three new characteristics, namely, weakened dependence, fragmented energy and time scarcity. These characteristics are rooted in the underlying logic of social operation, shaped by the times, and also show the trend of the times.
"Contemporary youth have a strong sense of individual identity, relying on self-ability and social resources to make a living in the market. Organizations play more of a platform to show and bless individual values, rather than a’ unit’ with identity attribution effect in the traditional sense." Lian Si said that young people are more self-decision-making, self-responsibility and self-action.
"Contemporary youth’s life time and space are bound by mobile modernity, so it is difficult to pay attention to the whole period, often interrupted by trivial matters, overloaded with information, and the processing time of a single task is shortened, and leisure time and working time interfere with each other …" Lian Si introduced that young people inevitably present the characteristics of "fast pace", "multiple parallelism" and "all-weather" as a whole. At the same time, they have a stronger sense of control over time and space.
"Uncertainty and fragmentation lead to time scarcity." Lian Si explained that a lot of time of contemporary youth is spent in dealing with scene switching and communication and cooperation, and some professional forms of "family", "modularization" and "immediacy" have also emerged.
New life needs: the customization of small world, the experience appeal of companionship, and the self-discipline of exquisite time and space.
According to Lian Si’s analysis, the weakening of dependence on work form, fragmentation of energy and scarcity of time work together to promote the drastic change of contemporary youth’s living needs.
"Uncertainty has spawned the customization of the small world." He explained that the risk of declining unit dependence increases the demand of young people for a sense of self-control, and the small environment around them is just an important way to realize a sense of control over life. Young people choose to define themselves with brand-new concepts. "Young people will feel that the big world is out of my control, but the small life has changed because of me."
He cited, for example, cultural interests such as baking, floral art, incense and so on, which are all ways for young people to build their own small world and show the uniqueness and self-attribute of the small world. "Building a lucky little world" has become an important consumer demand of some young people. They "build for poetic life", hoping to create a warm and ceremonial atmosphere by giving emotion and temperature to daily details to fight against the work.
Secondly, fragmentation breeds the experience appeal of companionship.
"The anxiety of’ life is limited, but things are limited’ is born from this. All these will make young people have the demand of’ light but not tired of companionship’." In Lian Si’s view, companionship refers to the need to fill leisure time, relieve anxiety and build self-space; The so-called "light but not greasy" is in line with the characteristics of fragmentation, and it needs a small fortunate and small companion that is lightweight, easy to touch, uncomplicated, simple and reliable. For young people who have not yet entered the family period, the superposition of "empty nest living alone" and space-time fragmentation has further amplified the demand for companionship and luck.
"Scarcity has inspired the self-discipline of exquisite time and space." In the introduction, Lian Si mentioned that with the improvement of income level and quality of life, young people no longer blindly pursue big names, but pay more attention to the quality of life itself. Such as online stores-Netease YEATION, Taobao Xinxuan, etc., and offline stores-famous and excellent products.
Another manifestation of young people’s attention to time in their life behavior is the birth of lazy goods aimed at saving time and liberating labor.
New pressure troubles: vague career prospects, expectation of living, and multiple choices of marriage and love.
New changes will inevitably produce new pressures. Lian Si found that within 10 years, young people can make changes through their own efforts in career development, residence, marriage and love, and they have expectations for future life and social system, otherwise they will question the social system.
As far as career development is concerned, with the development of information technology, youth employment and entrepreneurship are facing more paths. Some occupations attract young people with high academic qualifications due to factors such as free time, high income and great flexibility. At the same time, however, there are still a small number of young people with working ability who voluntarily choose to live without employment.
This group of young people who don’t go to school, get employed, study or take part in employment counseling, and do nothing all day long —— "Nite" is worthy of attention. According to the data of the sixth census in 2010, the research group estimates that the number of unemployed young people aged 14-35 who don’t go to school is about 6.22 million.
As an important item, youth marriage and love is written into the Medium and Long-term Youth Development Plan. Lian Si’s research group has done a survey on the marriage and love situation of urban youth, and found that the criteria for choosing a spouse of contemporary youth are more diverse, and they pay more attention to the connotative criteria such as the spouse’s personality, and also pay attention to the other party’s education, physical condition, age and other issues. At the same time, however, family situation, which is a more traditional criterion for choosing a spouse, is still valued by people, and irrational criteria such as "appearance association" and "love of beauty" still exist.
However, Lian Si also found that in real life, young people have long working hours and great occupational pressure, so they don’t have much energy and time to find a partner and manage their feelings, thus falling into the dilemma of "difficult marriage". "Young people are constructing the’ compartmentalization’ in marriage according to housing conditions such as price, apartment type, area and children’s educational resources, and further confirm their identity with this’ compartmentalization’".
The key to doing a good job in youth work is to solve the core demands of youth
During the research, Lian Si made a rule for everyone-deep admission, sympathetic communication, and withdrawal from judgment. For example, to study the courier brother group, you must at least follow them for a day.
"To study them, you must first stand in their perspective and experience their lives." In Lian Si’s view, this not only expresses his sincerity to the respondents, but also enables him to understand their life choices. Research is to stick mud under your feet, and it can’t be done simply by sending a questionnaire and doing an interview. Only by entering the life scenes of different youth groups and understanding the factors behind their choices and the warmth and coldness of human feelings can we make research results that truly meet the actual situation and the needs of the central government.
Hummingbird hovering between urban and rural areas is the definition of courier brother by Lian Si’s research group. He explained that the courier brother’s income when he returned to his hometown was not high, and it was difficult to integrate in big cities, just like a hummingbird hovering in the air. Hummingbirds are the only birds that can hover. They keep flapping their wings to keep themselves from falling.
What impressed Lian Si and the members of the research group was that Wu Mou, a 35-year-old courier, had been drifting north with his wife and children less than 100 days since 2002. Although they are diligent, hardworking and full of yearning for a better life, the reality is still grim for them.
Because there is no Beijing hukou, Wu Mou’s biggest worry is that her fifth-grade son can’t stay in Beijing to go to school. His son is interested in skating. Two years ago, the school began to form a short track speed skating team, and Xiao Wu became the first member to join. Now he can rank five or six in the district.
Generally, only the top five students are enrolled in middle schools. In order to stay in Beijing for school, Wu Mou must make greater efforts to deliver express delivery and pay the fees for after-school guidance for children.
"Through our works, let the weak voice and shine, so that everyone can see that people who live in the same society and community with you are struggling for their livelihood, and there are also disappointments in their lives, and they will cherish what they have now, be more willing to help others, and also inspire their motivation." Lian Si emphasized that this "universal inspiration" of seeing other groups empathize and be reasonable is the basis of doing well social science research.
How to do a good job in youth work in the new era?
Lian Si believes that the key is whether the core demands of youth can be realized through personal efforts. "Career development, marriage, family and living are the core variables that affect young people. If these major problems are not solved well, it is difficult to really touch young people simply by preaching".
He reminded that to do youth work, we must do specific things well and tell good stories. You can’t just talk about it, and you can’t just do it. This puts high demands on young workers’ ability to organize and mobilize and lead their thoughts.
The country has promulgated the Medium and Long-term Youth Development Plan, which is to solve the coordination problem of youth policies. How to promote the implementation of the Medium and Long-term Youth Development Plan? According to Lian Si’s analysis, under the guidance of national planning, the youth priority development strategy should be thoroughly implemented, and the youth policies scattered in different party and government departments, mass organizations and society should be brought into the overall policy framework to be systematically promoted, so as to form a strong synergy and reflect the priority. Among them, the function of the Communist Youth League as a voice for young people should be brought into play, so that the country can have a more immediate and accurate understanding of the demands of young people. Sometimes some demands of young people cannot be met immediately by the country at this stage, and the Communist Youth League should also explain them to young people in time. "The role of youth league organizations as bridges and ties should be brought into full play".
After years of research on youth groups, Lian Si is most proud of not only doing academic research, but also driving the students in the research group to observe and experience the lives of different groups and promote mutual understanding between people through their own research.
Lian Si still remembers having a discussion with the students of the research group after each investigation. After investigating the courier brother, a student said, "I will never get angry with the courier brother again, they are really too hard." In Lian Si’s view, this is very important. A graduate student, through such research, not only gains academically, but also has a positive impact on his outlook on life and values in the future, which is more far-reaching significance.
China Youth Daily China Youth Network reporter Du Yimeng
(Source: China Youth Daily)
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