ABSTRACT
The widespread use by youth and young adults of global communication and information technology has led social scientists to re-conceptualize traditional categories of youth ‘leisure’, as contrasted with study and/or employment, in ways which now overlap and merge. Older generations’ definitions of what constitutes ‘leisure’ must also be rethought. For example, young people’s ‘spare’ time may be perceived by parents as ‘lost’ or ‘wasted’ if it consists of ‘hanging out’ with friends apparently ‘doing nothing’ rather than ‘constructive’ or organized leisure activities. But their teenage children may use unprogrammed ‘time out’ to relax and maintain social relationships or to withdraw and make sense and meaning of the barrage of sensations and information which daily bombard their lives, and to develop their own sense of independence and identity (Abbott-Chapman and Robertson 2001). Research shows youth find their own physical, psychological and digital spaces in which ‘leisure’ becomes a ‘fluid’ concept. The shifting kaleidoscope of leisure activities, fashion trends and ‘must have’ possessions in the digital age takes different forms for different age groups as youth and young adults move from family dependence to independence. Most leisure activities, especially of younger teenagers, take place in and around the
home and local neighbourhood and not, as is popularly imagined, in city centres. This suggests that, despite the process of individualization taking place in post-modern, globalized societies, most young people are still attached to home and family. While the boundaries of home and away, global and local are becoming increasingly blurred, international research suggests that young citizens of the global economy still retain their local cultural, even ‘tribal’ viewpoints and identities and that the ‘local me’ and the ‘global me’ (Zachary 2000) co-exist independently but inter-connectedly, through the cultural ‘code switching’ of which young people are becoming masters. Individuals born between 1981 and 1995 and thereafter form the first generation born
within the digital age. As ‘digital natives’ their lives are different from preceding generations. Personalized digital devices and associated tools of the Web 2.0 world of blogs, podcasts, vodcasts, YouTube, wikis and online games are for them integral components
of self-expression (Richardson 2006). Social networking via digital media is independent of time and space and requires no mediation from adults (Robertson 2007). Leisure spaces for digital natives are connected 24/7 and (largely) independent of context and place. Intimate communications with friends and family merge with formal relationships of school, work and study, so that traditional lineal notions that separate play/ leisure time and work, as ‘free’ time from ‘non-free’ time, have little relevance. These ‘social geographies’ represent the fluidity of space (Holloway and Valentine 2000). ‘Loose Space’ as the setting for impromptu activities differs from ‘behaviourly controlled’ leisure time associated with built spaces and organized activities such as sports (Frank and Stevens 2007: 3). This does not preclude involvement in sporting and cultural activities because young people are able to participate in both simultaneously – via mobile phones and text messaging.
