Youth cultural practices as modes of time work: Chilling as rescheduling everyday life

Abstract

The phenomenon of young people reclaiming their time by rejecting traditional expectations associated with specific roles and engaging in activities that are socially addressed to be devoid of purpose, such as hanging out and chilling, is complex and multifaceted. It encompasses a range of meanings and is not simply what others call a waste of time. While many adults consider this phenomenon as wasting time by “doing nothing” or something that can be done after fulfilling the student role, young people employ these terms to refer to activities such as socializing, engaging in leisure, or taking me time. In Germany, young people have increasingly referred to hanging out as chilling in recent decades. This paper starts from the assumption that social acceleration, including temporalization of time and daily life to ensure social synchronization and coordinated actions, is an important trend in contemporary societies. Against this background, the article aims to ascertain the extent to which chilling represents a youth cultural expression of “time work” insofar as young people demonstrate the agency to negotiate the complexities of life, particularly in how they perceive and interpret time, simply by chilling. The concept of time work offers a crucial lens for understanding the temporal experiences connected to chilling, particularly in relation to how young people grow up and navigate life's uncertainties. Thus, rather than a moment of doing nothing, this article contends that chilling is a central temporal experience during the youth phase as a form of “time work.” Accordingly, chilling should be seen as a youth cultural response to the decelerating demands of the youth phase; it offers the means by which young people regain structural control over their biographical time with peers.

Introduction

The phenomenon of young people reclaiming their time by rejecting traditional expectations associated with specific roles and engaging in activities that are socially addressed as being devoid of purpose, such as hanging out and chilling, is complex and multifaceted. It encompasses a range of meanings that cannot simply be seen as a waste of time. While many adults associate this phenomenon with the concept of wasting time by “doing nothing” or something that can only be done when a young person has fulfilled their student role, young people employ these terms to refer to activities such as socializing, engaging in leisure, or taking me time. In Germany, young people have begun to refer to hanging out as chilling in recent decades (Mengilli, 2022). The term “chill” is derived from the verb “to chill.” It first emerged in the late 1980s within the context of the techno music scene, where “chill-out” rooms were used as spaces to slow down and relax, a counterpoint to the fast-paced rhythm of the music (Androutsopoulos, 2005). Moreover, the concept of chilling has also been identified as a central element within the context of hip-hop culture (Blackman, 2004), entailing a distinctive utilization of both time and space. Chilling is frequently distinguished by its more gradual pace, rejection of external obligations, and focus on the present moment. In contrast to more structured and goal-oriented activities, chilling underscores the existence of disparate modes of experiencing and valuing time. Such observations can be interpreted as responses to the pervasive acceleration of modern life, which posits that the relentless pace of technological, economic, and social changes has profound implications for individuals and societies (Rosa, 2020; Vostal, 2019).

Chilling is a consistent youth cultural expression around the world. In Britain, for example, hanging out was observed as part of a resistance strategy for working-class boys (Willis, 1978). In China, the movement “tang ping” (lying flat) involves young people lying down as a form of passive resistance against societal pressures (Squire and Wheeler, 2024; Zhou, 2023). In Italy, “waithood,” interpreted as forced chilling or a mode of deceleration, was observed in the context of prolonged transitions to stable jobs (Cuzzocrea, 2019). Youth in Ghana and South Africa similarly experience a state of obligatory waiting, which can be conceptualized as a delayed transition to adulthood because of the economic dependence experienced in contexts such as soccer academies and migrant shelters (Levy and Dubinsky, 2024).

Examining these practices across different countries and societies has revealed various time-related aspects. For example, practices such as chilling or reclaiming time can be interpreted as taking a break from everyday life demands and the accelerated pace of social life. The necessity of waiting often evokes a sense of powerlessness and a lack of agency, constituting an aporia inherent in enforced time-outs. Instead, waithood and chilling can be seen as youth cultural strategies and answers to decelerate the demands of the youth phase and to regain control over biographical time. In other words, while the general population is experiencing accelerated time due to rapid technological and social changes, young people are engaging in cultural practices that create temporal stagnation that differs from regular societal rhythms. Various groups of young people engage in diverse temporal agencies. Time does not merely happen to young people; instead they act as “architects of their own temporal experiences” (Flaherty et al., 2023: 4).

Under capitalism, social change is understood to signify an acceleration of processes of socialization and exploitation in what are often referred to as high-speed Western societies (Rosa, 2013, 2020). Social acceleration thus exhibits characteristics of total domination, forcing all subjects to speed up by getting faster and optimizing to keep pace with “modernization” and its accelerated program (Rosa, 2013: 196). Differentiated models are increasingly being considered to decenter Europe and promote a culturally sensitive and historically informed understanding of social acceleration, including non-Western examples. For instance, Poornik's (2023) examination of the Iranian bazaar draws attention to alternative economic formations, challenging Rosa's (2020) theory of social acceleration for its Western orientation by demonstrating that non-Western economic formations also exhibit acceleration and modernization. This highlights the necessity for a more comprehensive, inclusive, and nuanced theory.

This paper starts from the assumption that social acceleration is an important aspect of contemporary societies, including the temporalization of time and daily life to ensure social synchronization and the coordination of actions. It aims to ascertain the extent to which chilling represents a youth cultural expression of “time work” (Flaherty, 2022; Leccardi, 2021), whereby young people demonstrate agency in negotiating the complexities of life, particularly in how they perceive and interpret time. The concept of “time work” is a crucial lens for understanding the temporal experiences connected to chilling, particularly in relation to how young people grow up and navigate life uncertainties. The analysis draws on empirical findings from a qualitative study on chilling (Mengilli, 2022) to emphasize the architecture of young people's temporal agency, which is defined as their active engagement in shaping temporal experiences and taking breaks from the present to manage or extend future transitions. This provides insights into the challenges of contemporary youth, the meanings they ascribe to them, and the process of communitization in everyday life as a means of coping with time-intensive demands during the youth phase in subjectively meaningful ways. Youth cultural practices reflect how young people navigate societal conditions and position themselves with practices such as chilling or hanging out. In such a perspective, chilling can be interpreted as a mode of time work. The article begins with an overview of various global phenomena among young people. It then uses a theoretical approach to scheduling and rescheduling in everyday life to illustrate three distinct practices of chilling as “rescheduling” by analyzing empirical material. Based on these findings, the article concludes with an examination of the challenges young people face in terms of their time work in their daily lives.

Youth cultural practices as responses to the youth phase

Various scholars have investigated the phenomenon of youth cultural practices whereby young people reclaim their time by engaging in activities that distract them from the demanding expectations of the youth phase. Willis (1978), a researcher at the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, observed practices such as blocking or manipulating teachers’ timetables and developing a counter-school culture to gain control over school time. For Willis, everyday resistance was evident in how young people sought to recover time by interfering in how teachers and the educational system organized school time. Resistance in this sense ranged from evading teachers’ supervision to different oppositional forms that disrupted the school system in countless small ways (Willis, 1978: 12). When school authorities were no longer able to exert control over them, working-class youth engaged in rebellious activities, which allowed for the emergence of counter-school cultures. This reflected young people's struggle for autonomous space where they could differentiate themselves from the education system's norms and regulations. Willis argued that truancy or remaining in class but not “doing work” served as a tactic to prolong school time by interfering with the school's objective of preparing students for the labor market. Accordingly, students were able to carve out their own agency during the allotted school time (Willis, 1978: 27).

In his ethnographic study, Schooling the Smash Street Kids, Willis’ colleague Corrigan (1979) observed that British street youth's primary activity was “doing nothing” on the streets (p. 119); such “nothing” included activities such as sharing interesting stories, joking, and engaging in nonsense and spontaneous actions like throwing bottles. The street served as a platform for ideas born out of boredom, while society sanctioned and labeled the resulting actions as “juvenile delinquency” (Corrigan, 1979: 120). Moreover, Corrigan underscored that characterizing these youth cultural activities as “nothing” dismissed the young people's practices, even if they self-identified their actions as “doing nothing” (Corrigan, 1979: 127). Severed from its meaning, “doing nothing” was therefore perceived as a waste of time, hedonism, or simply something that does not contribute to society or the future.

In her 2006 analysis of the phenomenon known as “hikikomori,” Kaneko (2006) sought to understand the process of withdrawing from societal demands. Hikikomori refers to individuals who withdraw from social interaction, typically remaining in their homes for six months or more while avoiding activities such as work or school. Kaneko's research demonstrates that hikikomori perceive time differently than those who adhere to prevailing societal rhythms. For some hikikomori, the passage of time becomes disjointed, with days merging into each other without the structure provided by work, school, or social interactions. This analysis provides insights into how extreme social withdrawal intersects with experiences of time. Hikikomori represents a refusal and expression of societal time and space constraints, which can make it challenging for individuals to readjust to time pressures and fulfill social roles once they have adopted this lifestyle (Kaneko, 2006: 246).

Similarly, Cuzzocrea (2019) observed Italian youths’ “time-taking” as a phenomenon of procrastination or prolonging the assumption of adult roles. In the context of social acceleration and practices of slowing down during permitted moratoria or (forced) waithood in the youth phase, (normative) expectations are particularly significant (Cuzzocrea, 2019: 581). By taking their time, young people proactively structure their time during these transitional phases. Young people's temporal experiences are thus intertwined with uncertainty about their future employment, chilling out with friends, and the necessity of making decisions (Cuzzocrea, 2019: 568). Rather than being passive recipients of external forces, they employ a range of techniques to imbue their experiences with purpose, navigate delays, and ultimately influence the formation of the future in the context of uncertain socioeconomic circumstances. Similarly, prolonged transitions, known as “yo-yo” transitions (Biggart and Walther, 2006), are significantly time-oriented because of the starts, stops, and returns to transition that they involve, and are linked to different perspectives and meanings of time. Concurrently, scholars have also noted the necessity or virtue of chilling, even in an actionless state of doing nothing, in the context of accelerated conditions. By cultivating a capacity to do nothing, young people learn the foundations of establishing a work-life balance and managing increasing demands associated with self-optimization. This represents a significant demand in itself, as Odell (2019) has critically noted.

As the collective findings of these studies illustrate, young people use various means to navigate and resist societal time pressures, from disrupting educational norms to embracing periods of inactivity and isolation. Such practices highlight the strategies young people use to reclaim autonomy over their time and challenge conventional expectations. Thus, analyzing these temporal experiences as modes of time work provides insights into how chilling decelerates or cools external demands together with peers by doing time. Studies have shown how young people cope with the youth phase using different means to delay the uncertainty ascribed to achieving traditional markers of adulthood, including doing activity-full “nothing.” Accordingly, chilling can be seen as a youth cultural answer to the demands of the youth phase, although it is often dismissed as “doing nothing” or wasting time. Analyzing the practices and the temporal experiences (quality of time) of chilling can, therefore, contribute to an understanding of how young people do time work (doings and sayings).

Young people's schedules of growing up

Acceleration processes and structures significantly impact young people lives as they have to manage multiple challenges simultaneously, which increases future uncertainty (Rosa, 2013, 2020). The concept of the youth phase as a period of delay or suspension of certain responsibilities was proposed as a moratorium for young people to explore their identities and potential roles without the immediate pressures of adult commitments (Zinnecker, 2003). With the ascendance of the principle of meritocratic performance, it can be perceived as an educational moratorium, constituting a pivotal component of the institutionalized life course in a range of Western societies (Kohli, 2007).

Kohli argues that the life course has become an institution, governed by societal norms, policies, and regulations that organize life into distinct phases, such as education, work, and retirement (Kohli, 2007). The youth phase as a moratorium serves to maintain the linear, normalized course of life, with schedules or schemes of “correct” times for certain status passages (critically Walther and Stauber, 2013). Torres (2021: 35) employs the term “temporal regimes” to explain the creation and stabilization of time structures, encompassing both their sociohistorical aspects and their ties to social conditions. The normative structuring character of social time regimes continues to exert significant influence on the life courses and worlds of young people. According to Torres “time is an everyday, embodied life sphere” (Torres, 2021: 7), and the temporal constitution of contemporary societies can be analyzed as temporal regimes in which multiple temporal logics exist. Previously, Freeman (2010: 3) had introduced the term “chrononormativity” to describe how dominant thought patterns shape institutional and cultural rhythms, making social time structures appear natural and organizing the significance of time. However, it would be erroneous to assume that individuals are merely passive within this sociotemporal framework. Thus, Flaherty (2003) and Leccardi (2021) emphasize the concept of “time work” to underscore the active role individuals play in managing and organizing their time-related activities.

This article employs the concept of time work in the context of rescheduling in particular. The structures of time and the phenomenon of social acceleration exert a considerable influence on young people's life courses and agency. According to Emirbayer and Mische (1998), the concept of agency can be understood as the dynamic interplay between past experiences and resources, future aspirations, and the challenges young people must navigate in the present. In considering the agency of time work, it is possible to analyze both the influence of the temporal frameworks that young people grow up in and their active role in maintaining or modifying these patterns.

Additionally, the organizing principle of time and the social construction of timetables are essential for understanding the role of young people's schedules. Timetables reflect how we prioritize our lives (Zerubavel, 1981: 53) and how we structure our social relationships. Leisure time is defined as a period free from work obligations, whereas private time involves multifaceted interactions where one may be inaccessible to some individuals but accessible to others (Zerubavel, 1981: 148). Time segments our lives, delineating the boundaries between the private and public spheres, as well as the various social roles and involvements that comprise our lives. Spaces are relevant in this context, as private time is “sociofugal,” designed to separate people, whereas public time is “sociopetal,” fostering interaction (Zerubavel, 1981: 143). It provides rigid boundaries for regulating social accessibility and maintaining diverse social interactions (Zerubavel, 1981: 141). Scheduling standardizes everyday lives as time moves away from a natural to a structured time sense. Zerubavel also argues that events fix activities to specific times, days, periods, and everyday life structures; the calendar dictates human activity (Zerubavel, 1981: 7). The negotiation of these schedules is linked to personal and social systems, as the establishment of schedules is constrained by the social environment (Zerubavel, 1976: 88). In terms of youth cultural practices, this signifies that such activities are subservient to the youth phase's institutional priorities, as compulsory schooling—which is prevalent in countries where this is the case—mandates a hierarchization.

According to Weigert, scheduling is inextricably linked to socially constructed structures and the measurement of time (Weigert, 1981: 196). Conversely, rescheduling can be employed as a heuristic to investigate the reorganization of time as a subjective construct, particularly during the youth phase, as this article discusses. Everyday life serves as the context in which scheduling occurs and is experienced, which is characterized by the passage and measurement of time and captured in memories and histories that are relevant to our identities (Weigert, 1981: 196). Humans construct social time in sequences and durations, including hours, weekdays, school years, and retirement. Social time encompasses both the microlevel of everyday periods and the macrolevel of historical eras, integrating physical and social time within individual lives (Weigert, 1981: 197). Having autonomous control over one's everyday life and time in general significantly impacts young people, particularly given the ambivalent and often contradictory nature of the requests they encounter from various—including educational and professional—institutions. The youth phase is future-oriented in terms of the transition to adulthood. However, the process of becoming an adult is not linear and may be prolonged. The present moment and the experience of being young are thus inextricably linked to the active construction of meaning through engagement with youth culture and temporal experiences. Spending time with peers in groups for communitization is essential to young people's everyday lives.

Chilling in peer groups can be understood as a temporal experience during which the constraints of timetables and schedules are suspended, and young people temporarily disengage from the demands of societal expectations (Mengilli, 2022). However, the ambiguity and diverse uses of chilling are notable as its meaning continuously evolves. For example, it has shifted from “cooling down” to “relaxing,” while its imperative form, “chill!,” has come to mean “cool down!.” This constant change could be interpreted as an attempt to escape the meanings adults impose on the practice, creating self-determined islands in everyday life through chilling. Chilling serves to facilitate a sense of community among peers, thereby fostering a sense of belonging that distinguishes them from those who are not part of the group. Temporal agency is “largely a product of existing arrangements and contributes to their reproduction” (Flaherty, 2003: 32), indicating that subjects’ agency to act on their own temporal experience is central. As chilling out in peer groups is not a socially accepted practice of coping with the challenges of the youth phase, it is not incorporated into the timetables that young people are expected to follow. Consequently, young people must create their own niches to integrate the temporal experience of chilling into their everyday lives. Given the absence of a guaranteed future outcome from temporal investment in certificates, such as the acquisition of employment after graduation, young people's biographical choices are inextricably linked to the redefinition, negotiation, and structuring of the relationship between biographical and social time (Leccardi, 2021: 87). With an extended time perspective, such as analyzing chilling, young people's agency can be uncovered in their time work practices, which are intended to establish some form of control over the course of a lifetime, thereby replacing actual life projects.

Although chilling is strongly connected to specific temporal experiences and agency, as young people must reschedule socially accepted timetables to regain control over their time, these modes of “time work” (Flaherty, 2003; Leccardi, 2021) have yet to be analyzed. The following section will introduce empirical findings on the temporal experiences of chilling in peer groups and patterns (or modes) of rescheduling within these groups.

Chilling as rescheduling: Time work and struggles in everyday life

Language and social interactions construct discursive practices, such as referring to chilling and doing nothing. The ways in which these activities are discussed, understood, and valued can vary across different social groups and contexts, reflecting broader discourses about leisure, work, and the use of time. Based on qualitative empirical data from the study “Chilling as a Youth Cultural Practice” (Mengilli, 2022), this article presents a reanalysis of the data with a new focus on the practices young people use to reschedule their everyday lives and activities to make time for chilling, which explicitly read as modes of “time work.” The original aim of the study was to explore the significance of shared practices and of chilling within peer groups. Consequently, group discussions were reconstructed using the documentary method of interpretation (Bohnsack, 2010). The research examined seven different peer groups from various contexts, including youth centers, youth cultural scenes, and sports clubs, all located in a German metropolitan area. The young people surveyed ranged in age from 14 to 27 years. The three groups analyzed for this article comprise young people between the ages of 18 and 25. Using the documentary method of interpretation, this study examines the structure of action and orientation to understand how young people create social reality through everyday practices (Bohnsack, 2010: 102). The groups are named after the symbols and contexts in which the research was conducted, such as CAP from graffiti, WG as a German abbreviation for a shared apartment, and DANCE for a dance collective. Peers were defined as like-minded individuals who interact directly with each other. All data are anonymized, and each group member provided informed consent for the research.

By exploring the temporality inherent in practices of chilling, the reanalysis elaborated on the challenges faced by young people and their resources of communitization. All groups shared an interest in belonging to a peer group as a universal characteristic, but the extent to which this desire shaped the temporal agency of the group varies. Based on empirical data from three contrasting peer groups, modes of “time work” to negotiate, redefine, or structure new relationships between biographical and social time to gain autonomous control over everyday time (Leccardi, 2021) are analyzed. Comparative reflections draw attention to the differences and similarities between the modes to reconstruct inequalities within these group-making practices. While the study on chilling (Mengilli, 2022) emphasized the importance of communitization and coping with external demands during the youth phase, this article reanalyzes temporal agency as patterns (or modes) of rescheduling normative temporal regimes within these groups.

Rescheduling (I): Negotiating belonging over time

The peer group CAP consists of a group of ten men between the ages of 18 and 25 who met during their school years through a shared interest in graffiti. The group is important for these men because graffiti is a central aspect of their peer dynamics. They develop a dual identity by participating in both legal and illegal graffiti activities. Legally, they engage in activities such as children's workshops and commissioned work. Illegally, they create graffiti within the cityscape. Legal venues, such as the youth center grounds or secluded locations, serve as training and socializing spots, where they refer to graffiti as “painting.”

Organizing chilling practices to come together as a group is linked to rescheduling. Dynamics such as group size, liveliness, space, and openness contribute to moments of belonging and maintaining the group. Richard, a member of CAP, explains:

I'm bored when I hang out with just one or two people I can chill with my girlfriend for that [laughing] when we meet it's about us as a group we usually all get together some come earlier some later but it doesn't matter as long as we all meet up

(Group discussion, CAP)

For Richard, group experiences are central, and the presence of all members is expected to establish a lively dynamic. Conversely, he prefers spending time with his girlfriend to chilling with just a few group members. Meetings tend to be open and fluid, as other members’ exact arrival is not crucial; the focus is on being together, regardless of any set meeting time. They do, however, set a broad time frame by specifying the day, hour, and place. Such gatherings favor an open dynamic and encourage unpredictable, experimental, and spontaneous activities with uncertain outcomes. Chilling, in this sense, is more about engaging in peer group activities—or, more abstractly, living out youth cultural practices—and overcoming normative expectations through scheduling their own temporal experiences.

Recognizing the group's graffiti in public spaces serves as a reflection of the group's collective experiences for the individual. By placing and recognizing graffiti in the urban environment, peers recall shared experiences, which strengthen their sense of belonging to the group, as Maximilian describes:

When you're out tagging it creates special memories that really stand out unlike normal activities like drinking together (…) it's just somehow something intense that connects you and […] when you're cruising through the city and you see a new piece by someone from the group then you have a very special occasion in mind where you think “umm he's busting his ass for us” […] you don't have that in normal friendships

(Group discussion, CAP)

Marking the city with graffiti addresses the group and reinforces its exclusivity because the experiences associated with graffiti are deeply connected to the group's communitization. Memories are embedded in graffiti, a timeline within the city, allowing group members to recall special moments and temporal experiences. Except cases when authorities remove their graffiti, pieces provide a permanent connection to the group.

This way of creating belonging involves the investment of future time and risks punishment since graffiti is legally considered vandalism in Germany and is punishable as property damage. Accepting this risk demonstrates commitment to the group and acts as a trial of courage, leading to an episodic community of fate. Such youth cultural practices represent a search for belonging that fosters interdependence and creates a uniquely exclusive collective that is distinct from other groups where such proof of friendship is impossible. Accordingly, graffiti in urban spaces offers memories that allow each group member to transcend the present and negate everyday existence. The group CAP creates its own friendship timeline, reviving memories and collective histories through the spatial practice of graffiti. Rescheduling is linked to challenging normative temporal regimes—both those of other peer groups and society's normative orders. Group organization is strongly linked to agency; being a group in the present means acquiring past experiences based on the common interest of graffiti in order to perform as a group. Rescheduling hegemonic schedules and normative ideas of good or criminalized practices is inherent in the practice of graffiti.

Rescheduling (II): Defining a “chill day”

A contrasting approach to rescheduling involves adapting existing temporal structures, as the group WG (translated as “shared flat”) demonstrates. This peer group consists of two women and one man between the ages of 22 and 26 who share an apartment and interact closely in their daily lives. Living with friends is a safe(r) space, offering a retreat from alienating environments and experiences. Additionally, the group provides a resource for coping with everyday life and its demands, as they can always rely on each other. The unique relationship between individual and collective caring makes this peer group akin to a family. Their living arrangements are negotiated and shaped daily as they keep each other informed and address individual needs for closeness or distance.

A more static mode of organizing the peer group and its chilling practices is associated with prestructured time slots, as exemplified WG and its communal living arrangement. Tom describes his schedule as follows:

Honestly I don't have much free time (.) […] um Fridays are my days off and I’ve started a brunch tradition […] I invite around five friends or so and then usually two or three show up […] we end up having brunch pretty much all day […] that's my chill day.

(Group discussion, WG)

Adapting his prestructured schedule, Tom designated Fridays as his “chill day.” Integrating chilling into his weekly routine, these Fridays are scheduled and structured to facilitate a consistent flow of activities by providing a specific framework: a designated group of friends on a fixed day with defined practices, such as eating together. The duration is flexible, often extending throughout the day, while the location is primarily institutionalized within the shared apartment's private kitchen. The flatmates are free to participate in the “chill day” and may leave at any time, thereby allowing them to shape their own temporal experience.

Some degree of negotiation occurs as individuals decide to either join or leave Tom's “chill day.” However, the framework remains consistent, as activities such as eating, talking, and sitting are largely determined by the established context of the kitchen setting. The private apartment provides a safe(r) and exclusive space, with private time being sociofugal in the designed sociality of the kitchen, or sociopetal to the extent that the group allows entry or exclusion. The set schedule highlights how time slots for breaks are centered around alienated or preoccupied time. In order to maintain a sense of agency, the group establishes its sociality in the immediate environment, ensuring safe and reliable friendships within the home.

Julie and Naomi elaborate on the relevance and meaning of the peer group in their everyday lives by discussing how they cope with challenges with their friends at home:

Julie: When you see each other all the time and hang out every two or three days you know what the other person is up to and how they’re feeling which is hard in other friendships since you don’t see each other as often

Naomi: Yeah you don't get to know other friends like you do people in a shared flat we’re together mornings and evenings and go through all sorts of life situations together during my breakup having the flatmates around was really important sure I still meet my other friends but having supportive people at home who are always there to listen is crucial

Julie: And you know each other well and know how to respond to each other

(Group discussion, WG)

Staying up to date, getting to know someone as a whole, synchronizing daily routines, and spending time together are central group resources. To cope with the challenges of everyday life, young people rely on their peer group. Rescheduling is linked to the determination of intentional time slots for chilling. Negotiation and support are daily practices of maintaining relationships, essentially doing friendship by caring. In addition, they support each other and form a reliable bond that provides immediate help in difficult situations. Unlike other friendships, this group gets to know each other in all life situations and stays informed about each member's well-being. These practices allow for a holistic friendship in which members know each other authentically within the intimate sphere of the home. Communal living thereby represents a mode of rescheduling that provides security by mitigating alienation through synchronizing schedules and institutionalizing chilling.

Rescheduling (III): Prioritizing the group

The last mode of organizing the peer group and its chilling is characterized by a focus on negotiating time and providing mutual care. Saba, Olivia, and Maya, collectively known as the group DANCE, are 23 to 24 years of age. The shared experience of growing up together, attending an Eritrean school, and a common interest in dance has created an unconditional bond between the individuals, which can be described as akin to a “small family.” Despite the fact that they now live in different cities, they prioritize reuniting in emergencies.

In addressing alienated social demands, the group members demonstrate a capacity for mutual support, as evidenced by their “therapy lesson”:

Saba: We also realized recently that sometimes it's a bit like a therapy session because we just create our own space because there's also crying and weeping quite often so when you somehow finally find yourself together and then you just let it all out so really what feelings etc. are inside you and somehow only we can catch up […] and when you're together like that in the constellation then everyone is just there for everyone and um that's why it takes up so much time

Maya: We realized early on that we had so much to tell each other the older we got the shorter the training and the more the conversations became and now the conversations have definitely won […]

Saba: Or just when we have Saturday Sunday that we say Saturday we meet to chat Sunday we train

(Group discussion, DANCE)

The creation of an exclusive space is closely linked to extensive talking and time planning. Over the years, the group has already prioritized talking over dancing and organizes its meetings accordingly. A reflexive approach to change characterizes this practice, as the peer group consciously communicates and adapts its gatherings. With recourse to the past, the group's practice of talking is maintained, modified, and further intensified with a view to the future, where dancing might become irrelevant. The group underscores its exclusivity and importance, as no one else provides the same relief from everyday alienation. The group discusses their challenging everyday life experiences in depth, as this helps the individual members cope with their lives.

The balance between external demands and relaxation is emphasized in the following passage:

Saba: For me we really live in such a system tension relaxation tension relaxation and if we didn't have the relaxation we couldn't carry the tension in the long term so I have the feeling […]

Maya: Without balance nothing works in the world anyway and this balance is something that we need from each other other people swim twice a week and find their balance there we Africans find our balance by talking [laughing]

Saba: Or just dancing like we do now just like that for us again

Maya: So that's why I would say it's just as important as we find it to go to work just as important as we find it to talk to each other and to chill

(Group discussion, DANCE)

For the group, productivity and recovery are interdependent. Finding the right balance can be seen as time work, as the group integrates recovery through dance—or coping with alienated demands in their shared schedules. As prioritizing is about finding time and space for a specific temporal experience with the group, the members show agency by changing plans to make time for this togetherness even when they have other demands. The group members identify with external demands and create a narrative of dichotomy and reciprocity: tension requires recovery and vice versa. In balancing these demands, the peer group calls themselves “Africans,” who, unlike swimmers, find compensation in talking or dancing. This marks their national-ethno-cultural belonging as a unique group.

This section highlighted three modes of rescheduling everyday life to meet with a peer group: creating one's own action-oriented timeline, defining moments of flow with a chill day, and prioritizing the group by taking time. The following section will elaborate on these modes and discuss them theoretically. This analysis deepens the understanding of how young people navigate and structure their temporal agency within peer groups, emphasizing the interrelationship between time, space, and materiality in shaping their social realities.

Comparative reflections: Rescheduling through negotiation (I), definition (II), or prioritization (III)

Empirical insights from the peer groups, CAP, WG, and DANCE, reveal different modes of time work to cope with challenges through rescheduling chilling. Rescheduling involves organizing moments for the group to come together, referring to past experiences to cope with present demands and create certain temporal experiences that differ from their daily realities. Experiencing the moment together, achieving a sense of flow, and chilling away from external pressures are central temporal experiences. Such niches require openness to activities and modes of living in the present, withdrawing from future demands. These modes are located in a German metropolitan region that reflects the plurality of young people, their social contexts, their life situations, and the broader context of the welfare state in which they live (Walther, 2022). Formulating and changing schedules is an interactive and negotiated process deeply intertwined with rescheduling time, as time is limited due to certain demands, roles, and surroundings. Based on the empirical findings, this section analyzes three modes of chilling as rescheduling: negotiating belonging across time (I), defining a chill day (II), and prioritizing the group by taking time (III).

I. For the CAP group, chilling is associated with collective spontaneous actions that are not predetermined and necessitate flexible modes of rescheduling. Subordinating personal identities to the collective graffiti practice enables youth cultural expression, allowing for individual experiences of time through the retrieval of memories in urban space. These spatial practices can be seen as a form of control over one's lifetime and as an expression of young people's agency (Leccardi, 2021). The appropriation of public spaces inevitably gives rise to friction with public time and sociopetal spaces (Zerubavel, 1981), as graffiti writers are stigmatized and their practices criminalized (Baird, 2019; Mengilli et al., 2022). Rescheduling is inextricably linked to agency (Emirbayer and Mische, 1998), as evidenced by the inscription of memories across urban landscapes and the creation of a “time out” in the sense of a moratorium initiated by an “episodic community of fate,” which serves to negate the normative temporal regimes of everyday life (Bohnsack and Nohl, 2003: 373). Agency is linked to a specific mode of mobilizing past experiences to establish a long-lasting timeline and thereby experiencing a sense of belonging across time through chilling. The decision to invest one's lifetime with the potential risk of criminalization is connected to time, as social work programs or prison could eventually take the member's time if they were caught (Miles, 2023).

II. In contrast, how the WG group makes a home is linked to a static rescheduling approach, and schedule negotiation and synchronization are central to their mode of time work (Zerubavel, 1976). The group follows a defined schedule and temporal regime (Torres, 2021), adopting a time-efficient mode of friendship to create a shared home together. In alignment with Kumar and Makarova (2008), the private domain is situated in domestic space, where one can experience authenticity, intimacy, and protection (Kumar and Makarova, 2008: 330). This domain necessitates the establishment of reliable relationships through the enactment of caring practices and structures. Caring is central to the relationship. The flatmates integrated each other into their everyday lives through daily updates, and establishing institutionalized structures, such as the chill day, is significant (Mengilli, 2022). The friends rely on each other to cope with challenging life events, such as breakups. The designation of a chill day ensures a specific temporal experience and quality as a day off from work is rescheduled into a functioning chill day.

III. The DANCE group provides an illustrative example of balancing societal demands and the need to chill. The creation of niches within the synchronized everyday life is contingent upon the suspension of activities such as dancing or work. In order to reclaim time within the context of their demanding daily lives, the group members have devised a strategy of rescheduling their commitments in order to make space for their collective “therapy,” which helps them cope with challenging normative temporal regimes. The act of identifying as African can be seen as a means to differentiate themselves from others and as a reaction to the legacy of white supremacy (McIntosh, 2020). This mirrors the notion that “time is racialized, and race is temporalized” (Miles, 2023: 143). Agency is obvious when it comes to taking time for the group and postponing other duties, similar to what is associated with the concept of slowness, which involves the adoption of a different temporal rhythm that deviates from the prevailing mainstream conception of time (Adeyemi, 2019). Miles (2023) posits that a distinctive experience of some Black People of Color is shaped by a shift in pace. Some seek out spaces that validate their specific temporalities, moving against conventional time structures (Miles, 2023: 129). In their busy daily lives, the DANCE group reschedules responsibilities, establishes exclusivity as a peer group, and prioritizes their friends when one is in need.

In sum, the analysis of chilling as rescheduling practices reveals three modes of time work that demonstrate how young people negotiate, redefine, and structure their relationships vis-à-vis biographical and social time to exert control over everyday time (Leccardi, 2021). This analysis offers insights into the temporal experiences embedded in different social contexts. The introduced modes of time work elucidate the ways in which young people are situated in and do time. Youth is not an amorphous, unstructured entity; instead, it is a social construct that is institutionalized with the purpose of preparing young people for the future. Accordingly, young people are “doing youth” when chilling (Grundmann, 2020; Mengilli, 2022). Offering a moratorium to facilitate the transition into adulthood through schooling creates tensions within young people's temporal experiences, challenging normative temporal regimes and their modes of time work. As the empirical insights offered here show, practices of chilling can be interpreted as a youth cultural response among young people in the German welfare state to societal demands during the youth phase. These practices serve to decelerate the accelerated pace of social change. The prioritization of time spent with the peer group, the designation of a chill day, and the undertaking of spontaneous practices represent three distinct modes of maintaining temporal agency through rescheduling predetermined timetables.

Despite the interrelational character of these modes, there are nevertheless discernible differences between the groups. Specific practices, such as dancing, are permitted in designated locations and times, whereas others, like graffiti, are illegal. The existence of social inequity is evidenced by the fact that some young people are able to afford to live together in a shared residence, while others are not. Furthermore, disparities are accentuated when young people affiliate with ethnic groups and situate themselves as Black within a white society with predominantly white privileges (McIntosh, 2020). As a discursive practice, chilling is often labeled as “doing nothing.” In light of Fricker's (2007) theory on epistemic injustice, this can be interpreted as testimonial injustice, whereby an individual, due to their own preconceptions and biases, ascribes a lower degree of credibility to statements made by another individual than what is warranted (Fricker, 2007: 1). This signifies that the listener's bias causes them to unjustly doubt or dismiss the speaker's testimony, not because of the content itself, but rather due to preconceived notions about the speaker's identity or background. This also applies to the phenomenon of chilling, which adults often dismiss as they do not take young people seriously because they are not yet adults. Examining youth cultural practices, such as chilling and hanging out, which are also labeled “doing nothing,” should be taken seriously as a response to increasing social acceleration that offers intersectional and relational insights into young people's temporal agency. Those who are generally seen and addressed as neither fully adults nor children are often stigmatized for their youth cultural practices including “doing nothing,” illustrating a “hegemony of time […] with structures of epistemic hegemony” (Valkenburg, 2022: 439). This raises a key question: How is the analysis of temporal agency work among youth practices related to time? What does it contribute to the study of time?

Conclusion: Struggles over time in everyday life

Considering chilling practices as a mode of rescheduling and time work helps to illuminate how young people navigate temporal structures such as social acceleration. This includes their orientation toward chrononormative ideas (see Freeman, 2010) about the right timing for certain life transitions or doing youth within predetermined time frames. Young people's diverse expressions and movements, including hanging out, withdrawing from societal demands, and taking a break, demonstrate the urgency and diversity of locally situated youth cultural practices as responses to societal pressures. The reciprocal relationship between institutionalized time schedules (of the life course) and time work is part of a constant shift in the temporal regime related to youth and growing up. This manifests itself in tensions between acceleration, time sovereignty in everyday life and in struggles for time in everyday life (Flaherty, 2022).

Meaningful and quality time is not directly linked to an immediate result; young people have only a few time niches that have been given the name of leisure or free time. Such a label is only allotted for youth who are being young and doing something useful. Since conceptualizations of time are linked to specific forms of knowledge, the hierarchies and articulations of different temporalities directly reflect the hierarchies of knowledge (Valkenburg, 2022: 437). For youth, in an adult-led society, socialization refers to the hegemonic pace of the society in which one lives. Analyzing youth cultural practices as time work allows for an identification of power hierarchies and underlying temporal regimes. Rather than conforming youth cultural practices to normative time assumptions, decoding practices such as chilling highlight the youth temporal experiences through the lens of a personal sense of time, flow, intensity, and boundaries (Flaherty, 2003). From this analysis, chilling as a mode of time work provides insights into injustice, as youth practices such as hanging out are dismissed as doing nothing.

As Freeman (2022) states, feminist, queer, and trans temporality studies argue that Anglo-European time structures reinforce a deeply gendered heteronormativity, with women and sexual minorities often experiencing and navigating time differently. Time and social justice are deeply intertwined, as time is first and foremost a “vector of power, wielded to produce and maintain exploitative relations between people” (Freeman, 2022: 25). Miles’ (2023) analysis of Black temporal resistance argues that taking time should be interpreted as an expression of Black students’ resistance to the dominant temporal order (Miles, 2023: 125). Another significant intersectional dimension of time studies is generational conflict, which leads to contestation over how young people are expected to spend their time without valuing the efforts involved in having, keeping, and doing friendship through chilling. The ways in which young people respond to societal demands can vary depending on the contexts in which they are situated and addressed. Consequently, the phenomenon of chilling can be understood as a youth cultural response that expresses agency by decelerating the demands of the youth phase in order to regain structural control over one's biographical time with peers.