Las significaciones de tiempo libre en la adolescencia

The current study was intended to examine adolescent leisure meanings and to relate meanings and behavior to experience. Eighty-six high school juniors and seniors responded to a written questionnaire, and a subgroup of 24 volunteered to take part in an experience sampling (ESM) phase, responding to random signals over a seven day period. The ESM analysis showed that levels of relaxation, enjoyment, intrinsic motivation and happiness and seeing the activity as freely chosen and a reflection of one’s “true self were all related to seeing a situation as leisure. Perceiving a situation as leisure was not related to self-evaluation, was negatively related to seeing it as challenging, and was more likely to be an occasion where skills were perceived to be greater than challenges rather than well matched. In response to an open ended survey question, “leisure” was most often defined in terms of relaxation and free time. These findings suggest that for most of these adolescents leisure seems to be a condition of easy, relaxed enjoyment, with little emphasis on action and challenge-seeking.