Leisure Time 3.0 or what we really like to do | Ulrich Reinhardt | TEDxBerlin

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.
When it comes to leisure time, what is it that the people want to do? What did they do 50 years ago? And what will they do in the future? Prof. Dr. Ulrich Reinhardt addresses these questions in his interesting, and sometimes very funny, talk.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

what is it that you are seeing here?

Can we dim the lights for that?

Is there something that you see?

Mud. A cow.

The Earth from above.

Nothing.

How many of you are
seeing actually a cow?

Oh, that's pretty good.

The other ones are probably thinking:

well, the cows must look
different where he comes from.

(Laughter)

I want to give you a small hint.

Aah! The cow is quite obvious now. Right?

Actually it's pretty much the same

if we talk about
the future of leisure time.

The future of leisure time
is absolutely obvious.

We have this old saying in Germany

that sometimes you do not see
the forest because of all the trees.

Well, that's not true,
I mean, things are obvious

and it's the same with leisure time.

People have certain needs,
we are all humans.

We like certain things.

We like to spend our time with
other things like chumminess, for example.

And that we sure
do not change our behavior

just because we have new possibilities.

A change in behavior needs time,

and time is very, very limited.

What does this number mean to us?

8,760.

It's the number of hours
we have each year.

Now the big question is
how are we spending

this tremendous amount
of time we are having?

Are we spending it working?

Are we spending it doing something
we like during our leisure time?

Or is there maybe something in between?

If we divided this time, we could
divide it into three sections.

The first one, of course, is working time.

When you are full-time employed,

you work about 20 %
of your time each year,

1,618 hours to be exact.

You have 29 days of vacationing
and you are sick for 7.6 days.

Then we have this big huge field
which takes about 55 % of your time.

Well, it's not working time
but it's not leisure time either.

It's something in between.

We call it "obligation time."

There you do actually things
because you more or less have to do it.

Take sleeping for example.

In average, you sleep for
7 hours and 14 minutes.

That's about one third
of your lifetime, you're not awake.

You are in your own bed.

Or take the time
that it takes to get to work,

the time to clean yourself
or to clean your house.

The time you have to take care
of someone else.

That also takes time.

And, of course, we have
this big fusion between work and leisure.

I mean, when was the last time
we really turned off

our mobile phones on the weekend?

When was the last time that
we did not write an email,

or read an email
while we were on holidays?

Or when was the last time
that we went out for a beer

with a friend or a colleague
and skipped the topic work

totally out of our conversation?

So, work is always there.
That's not then pure leisure.

The time that is left,
that actually is leisure.

Leisure time can be defined when you
do something without having to do it.

It's freedom of choice.

It's not easy to simply put
an activity into this field.

Think, for example, when you
are visiting your relatives.

Is that leisure time?

(Laughter)

Or for women it's normally leisure time
when [they] go out shopping.

Is it for all the men? I'm not sure.

With sex, it's the other way around.
But that's a different story.

(Laughter)

Let's fly back in time and have a look
how the development of leisure time

actually took place within
the last 50 to 60 years.

If we go back to the 50s,

the average working time was
48 hours or six days a week.

No surprise that relaxing was
very important when you had time off.

Apart from that, [there] was
the decade of the baby boomers.

So the family really was
at the center of the life,

playing with the kids was
the most common leisure activity.

The third most popular leisure activity
was looking out of the window.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

An activity that's not
too common in our days.

In fact, already in the 60s,
of course, the television

exchanged this looking
[out of the window].

The 60s are also the decade - the
television is just one simple example -

where a whole consumption wave
went over [West] Germany.

We had the first cars,
we had the first vacuum cleaners,

the first dish washer,
the first washing machines,

the first TV's - all that
popped up during the 60s.

The 60s are also the only decade

where culture activities
were ranked under the top ten.

People went to the museums,
they went to the theaters,

because they were not
too much other things to do.

The 70s are known as
the golden decade of leisure time.

We had a growing population
with a growing income

and a growing amount of leisure time.

So, no surprise that a new industry
developed in our country.

Before that, we basically e. g. had
no amusement parks in Germany.

The 80s were different in many ways.

Take, for example, sports.

It was the only decade
where sport was in the top ten.

Main reason for that, of course,
was Boris Becker and Steffi Graf.

They won Wimbledon,
and many Germans thought

they could be tennis pros as well.

Also music was very popular.

Some of you may even get the
connection between a tape and a pencil.

(Laughter) (Applause)

Of course, the biggest influence during
the 80s [were] the private TV channels.

It's always interesting when
I ask my students at university:

"Since when do we have cable TV
or private TV channels in our country?"

Most of them look at me and say:

"What do you mean? There have
always been private TV channels."

And when I tell them:

"When I was young we had three TV channels

and we had the national anthem at midnight

and then we had the test screen
until the next morning" (Laughter)

they look at me and go like:
How old is he really?

(Laughter)

Of course, it was
the year 1984, the Orwell year,

when the private TV channels went on air.

By the way, 1984 was also the year
when the Chaos Computer Club

published its first study
about the future of computer,

and the public was able to buy computers,

Commodores, 64, Schneider, Atari - they
went into the stores in the year 1984.

Typically characteristic for the 90s
is of course the telephone.

Suddenly, the telephone was not
just a tool to exchange information

within 8 minutes
for 23 Pfennig at that time.

There was suddenly
a bridge to one another.

People were really talking to one another.

It was not that the people met,

they were simply talking
to each other on the phone.

It was also the decade
when new target groups developed.

Remember the double income,
no kids? Of course.

The "best ager", the "golden ager" --
we are all aware of them.

But how about the "Skippies?"
Does anyone remember the "Skippies?"

School kids with income
and purchasing power.

(Laughter)

Very, very popular during the 90s -
not that popular anymore.

And of course the last decade,

we have dedicate that decade
to the new media:

internet, computers,
mobile phones, smartphones --

all that popped up
within the last ten years.

So how about the present?

How are we spending our time that we have?

If we look at the top ten, television
is still the undisputed champion.

It really doesn't matter if you
go into different age groups,

if you look at the
education level of a person,

the income level, if he is married or not,

if female or male - it doesn't matter.

Television is always ranked number one.

Then you see that the old medias are still
very popular: listening to the radio,

reading the newspaper, and of course,
kind of social individual activities like

spending time with your family
or with your partner,

or simply thinking for yourself.

No doubt that the new media
is really having a big influence.

Take e. g. the number
that the internet and the PC gained

about 40% within the last five years.

So, 40% more users within
a very short period of time.

What still worries me
if we talk about the internet

is of course this kind of digital gap
that we still have in Germany.

I call it the "Users" and "Losers."

Take for example education and age.

If you have a good education,
it's very likely that you can be online.

But if you only have a low education,

only one out of three
has the chance to go online.

Now the problem is not
that do not have access.

Nearly every school has access by now.

The big challenge or the big goal to
look to is of course media competence.

The people have to be able
to make use of this new tool.

If we talk about the age groups,

no doubt, it's only going
to be a few more years

until the young generation will be using

the internet as frequently
as the television.

For my age, in the middle of life,
I am not so sure.

They are two big influence factors.

One, of course, is work.

The moment you start working,
you do not have the time

to be online all the time.

You do not have the time
to play video games all night long,

or log on to your Facebook profile.

And the second thing, of course, is,
the moment you are getting married.

The moment you are getting
married or you have kids,

your priorities in life simply change.

Suddenly consumption and leisure time
are not as important as they used to be.

The family is at the center of your life.

But back to my topic:
The future of leisure time.

We ask the easy and
very profound question:

What would the people like
to do more often?

As you see upfront the so called "3 S":

Be spontaneous, have more sex
and sleep in -

maybe even a combination of the three -

have spontaneous sex and sleep afterwards,

but that's another story.

(Laughter) (Applause)

But apart from that, we would only see
that social individual activities

are the ones that people are looking for:

having more time for the family,
more time for their friends,

more time for their team mates, for their
neighbors - even for their grandparents.

So, it's very interesting that
the actual habits of the people

are totally different from
what they are looking for.

If we talk about the media:

Only one out of five Germans
would like to watch more TV.

Only 24% would like to
use the internet more often.

So that's very interesting.

The big question is:
How will the future look like?

Will it be like that?

Family or peer group or friends

doing things together
during their leisure time -

and maybe even being outside.

Or will it be like that?

That they are outside - (Laughter) - but
still are just connected to themselves.

Now, don't get me wrong,
I love the internet and I love the TV.

I mean, the TV is
offering us a lot information,

it's entertaining us,
and of course, it's relaxing.

Most people really come home from work,
sit on the couch and just watch TV.

Or the internet, I mean,
it's giving us unlimited information -

more information that you can find
in the biggest libraries of the world.

It's giving you a 24/7 possibilities
to go shopping.

You have like this virtual
umbilical cord to stay in contact

with your family, with your friends,
even with people you may lost track off.

But of course, all of this takes time.

What do the Germans normally do
if they have this feeling

that time is really running
away through their fingers?

Well, they do three things:

They do the activities faster,
less accurate and they combine things.

Take, for example, television. Most of us
are not just watching television.

We are eating, we are drinking,

we are talking on the phone, we are
ironing our [clothes] for the next day.

We are doing so many things.

The majority of German school kids are
doing their homework in front of the TV.

But that's another story.

So let me end my talk with three thoughts

what I think will be important
for the future of leisure time.

Number 1: Maybe we should
start excepting less

from technical development
and more from ourselves.

(Applause)

Second: Maybe we should care
more about our quality of life

and not just about our standard of living.

(Applause)

And finally: Maybe we should not just
think about what the future will look like

but rather how we want the future to be.

(Applause)

I hope you all see the cow by now

and thank you very much
for your time, I guess.

(Laughter)
(Applause) (Cheers)