DOMO June 2013 pdf - Ringier

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interview
a Philipp Riederle: Absolutely. Our
generation, like no other before it,
feels that it is of crucial importance
to have solid personal relationships.
We don’t want to spend day and
night at the mercy of the world with
all its contacts, its pornography, its
Facebooks, its check-this-outcheck-that-out,
its revelations of the
last mysteries of mankind. We want
to come home at night and feel secure.
So you have become the people your
parents always warned you against?
Building-society investors, yes. We
want a house, a garden and a dog; to
go for walks in the evenings and have
dinner together. We want a place that
doesn’t just belong to us, but that we
belong to – a home, at the end of the
day.
The antithesis of the big, confusing
world of the web that you grew up
in. How were you able to survive this
overabundance of millions of websites,
blogs, forums and an average of
four hundred Facebook friends without
suffering permanent damage?
I had to learn to choose – until it
became my second nature to do so.
You know, as a result of this overabundance
young people’s values
have changed. At the top of their list
are self-determination, self-confidence
and self-realization. That
actually provides a pretty strong
basis. But one thing remains: you
have to recognize what’s relevant.
Everyone needs to find his or her
own thing.
So you’re not searching, you′re finding?
That is one of those key phrases that
accurately describes my generation.
As you’ve said, we are faced with
absolute overabundance with regard
to media. We have to learn to restrain
ourselves and to choose. Selection is
one of the essential jobs of the media.
If they want to win over our generation,
the kind of choices they offer us
will be of enormous relevance.
But many members of your generation
refuse to be dictated to by anyone.
They have their own ideas about
what’s relevant to them.
That’s exactly why media companies
have to position themselves in
such a way that they can offer tailormade
news and topics for different
types of people: sober reporting, a
personal narrative or an op-ed piece
that puts the matter into perspective.
We, the digital natives, want
media to show us a clearly recognizable
profile.
Thanks to digital media your generation
has a lot of knowledge, but is it
capable of understanding the knowledge
it accumulates?
True: we have it easier to acquire
knowledge than other generations
before us. We also have the means to
read up on a subject and come to
grips with it. The prerequisite, however,
is the same as it used to be: a
solid foundation in terms of a canon
of knowledge based on a good general
education. If we are equipped
with that then, yes, reading up on
topics and understanding them comes
as naturally to us as to no other
generation before us.
On the other hand, education isn′t
all you′re getting from the Internet.
Many children see their first porn
when they’re eleven, killer games
when they’re thirteen.
These figures are scary. The problem
is that the generation raising these
children and having to guide them
through their lives doesn’t really
know enough about these media to
protect their kids from the inherent
risks. As a result, children are let
loose on digital media without being
adequately prepared.
Computers and smartphones are taking
over from Lego and so on. The
technical term for this is age compression,
meaning that children are supposedly
growing up faster and faster.
I think that various influences are
responsible for the earlier onset of
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1: Philipp Riederle‘s
grandfather
taught him the
basics of electrical
technology, so at
the age of eight
he built his own
circuits and played
at being a TV host.
Philipp Riederle
lives with his family
in Burgau,
Germany. He is
a graduate from
Dossenberg-Gymnasium
and has a
girlfriend – «whom
I didn’t meet on
the Internet.»
2: In April 2008 he
launched his own
podcast; at first
it was produced
rather clumsily
from his own bedroom,
sometimes
with vacuumcleaner
noise in
the background
– later on it came
from his own little
recording studio
in a former party
room in the basement.
3: Philipp Riederle
lectures on his
favorite subjects
– social media and
Generation Y – at
conventions, media
conferences
and international
symposiums.
natural puberty nowadays. But the
fact that children get in touch with
subject matters of the adult world
does not mean that they are actually
grown up. They first have to develop
their personality and to achieve maturity
like all adolescents before
them.
It is a fact, however, that digital communication
takes up a lot of time, one
of the best examples being Facebook.
This time is taken away from real life
and growing up.
Absolutely. Whenever I catch myself
thinking about just how much
time I spend in the digital world I’m
always shocked at myself. Hence
my appeal to everybody dealing
with children: Teach these kids to
deal with media! Children need to
know how to make use of digital
media but they also have to learn
which things they’d do better getting
from the real world. They need
to realize that this is still where life
takes place.
The digital hype has been on the wane
since 2011. Is this partly due to the insight
that the digital world cannot replace
real life?
I am convinced of it. Sooner or later
everything comes back to a healthy
sense of moderation. American college
students – who were among the
first users of Facebook – are now only
using the platform for quick exchanges.
Still, is it wishful thinking on behalf of
publishing houses to hope that they′d
ever pick up a printed newspaper and
read it?
To read news that is literally
yesterday’s? Never! I can only speak
for myself, of course, but I’ve never
really understood how to read a
newspaper. If I want to leaf through
it on the train I need a whole compartment
to myself and at the breakfast
table either the paper gets in the
way of the coffee cup or vice versa. I
prefer to read digitally, because it is
significantly more practical. In ad-
1 2 3
dition, I need to be able to mark a
text passage or save it in order to use
it again later; or to look for catchwords,
links to an article and maybe
look at the comments on it. All of
which speaks in favor of digital reading.
What kind of online offerings are you
prepared to pay for?
The weekly newspaper «Die Zeit»
offers a brilliant digital edition. As a
weekly it deals with issues in a more
in-depth way and from a distance
that is only possible in hindsight – as
opposed to the daily newspapers. I
think their long feature articles are
great. They provide me with intense
insight into a topic. The audio pieces
are just fantastic. Each issue offers
me up to twenty professionally recorded
audio files. Whether I’m on the
bus, on the train or jogging I can listen
to the Zeit’s most important articles
on my iPhone. This service really
sets them apart from the huge
grey majority.
Please give me an overview of what
you read during the course of a day.
I read up on the latest news of the
day on the big online portals of
Spiegel and Süddeutsche Zeitung; I
have a digital subscription to Die
Zeit and Der Spiegel even though
you only get a student’s discount for
the print editions. In addition, I
regularly check up things in the
Newsreader. Of course I keep an eye
on Twitter and Facebook. I am also
interested in the local section of our
regional newspaper, which I read
online.
Is there no glossy magazine that you
enjoy so much that you′d like to hold
it in your hands?
I like «Cicero» as well as «brand eins».
Of course it is much easier to quickly
buy such a magazine at the train
station’s newsstand instead of having
to download the issue via the
slow Internet connection on your cell
phone. But it isn’t practical. It’s annoying
having to carry an extra ten
In his book «Wer
wir sind und was
wir wollen» (Who
we are and what
we want) Philipp
Riederle gives an
account of the
point of view of
today’s web-savvy
youth. Without
needing to log
in or submit a
password his readers
learn what the
business of ideas
might look like in
the future. «By the
way, while I was
working on this
book I once again
came to feel that
this is a medium I
can appreciate.»
Or, to put it differently:
«like».
pounds of print products along with
my usual luggage.
What do you call «glossy» among online
publications?
When apps don’t merely provide a
digital equivalent of the print edition
but give me added value. What also
matters are the little details that
make reading easy: special options
for saving and highlighting. Also, the
articles need to be optimized for each
type of reading device, and I think it’s
important for them to have a way to
archive articles. Videos and audio
files are great.
Let′s get back again to the little house
with a garden. According to researchers
and youth studies the house
with a garden matters to young people
because they want to preserve the
wealth of their parents in this uncertain
world.
It’s pretty much along those lines. We
are looking for a foundation; we want
to put down roots. These are our basic
human values and needs. That’s
the reason why magazines like
«Landlust» - in Switzerland it’s called
«LandLiebe» - are so successful. Regional
crime series on TV are booming,
too. Our place in the world is
not an e-mail address or a Facebook
account. It’s a little house with a picket
fence.
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