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Information about Leisure

For the album by Blur, see Leisure (album).
"Free time" redirects here. For the musical term, see Free time (music).
For the poem by W. H. Davies, see Leisure (poem)


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A relaxing afternoon of leisure: a young girl resting in a pool.
Leisure or free time, is a period of time spent out of work and essential domestic activity. It is also the period of discretionary time before or after compulsory activities such as eating and sleeping, going to work or running a business, attending school and doing homework, household chores, and day-to-day stress. The distinction between leisure and compulsory activities is loosely applied, i.e. people sometimes do work-oriented tasks for pleasure as well as for long-term utility[1].

For an experience to qualify as leisure, it must meet three criteria: 1) The experience is a state of mind. 2) It must be entered into voluntarily. 3) It must be intrinsically motivating of its own merit. (Neulinger, 1981)

History

The word leisure comes from the Latin word licere, meaning "to be permitted" or "to be free", via Old French leisir, and first appeared in the early 14th century.[2] The notions of leisure and leisure time are thought to have emerged in Victorian Britain in the late nineteenth century, late in the Industrial Revolution. Early factories required workers to perform long shifts, often up to eighteen hours per day, with only Sundays off work. By the 1870s though, more efficient machinery and the emergence of trade unions resulted in decreases in working hours per day, and allowed industrialists to give their workers Saturdays as well as Sundays off work.

Affordable and reliable transport in the form of railways allowed urban workers to travel on their days off, with the first package holidays to seaside resorts appearing in the 1870s, a trend which spread to industrial nations in Europe and North America. As workers channelled their wages into leisure activities, the modern entertainment industry emerged in industrialised nations, catering to entertain workers on their days off. This Victorian concept - the weekend - heralded the beginning of leisure time as it is known today.

Types of leisure

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Leisurely driving at Skyline Drive, Virginia
  • Active leisure activities involve the exertion of physical or mental energy. Low-impact physical activities include walking and yoga, which expend little energy and have little contact or competition. High-impact activities such as kick-boxing and soccer consume much energy and are competitive. Some active leisure activities involve almost no physical activity, but do require a substantial mental effort, such as playing chess or painting a picture. Active leisure and recreation overlap significantly.
  • Passive leisure activities are those in which a person does not exert any significant physical or mental energy, such as going to the cinema, watching television, or gambling on slot machines. Some leisure experts discourage these types of leisure activity, on the grounds that they do not provide the benefits offered by active leisure activities. For example, acting in a community drama (an active leisure activity) could build a person's skills or self-confidence. Nevertheless, passive leisure activities are a good way of relaxing for many people.

Examples of leisure activities

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A woman relaxes in an urban park and enjoys a book during her lunch break.
People who work indoors and spend most of their time sitting and doing sedentary office work can add physical activity to their lives by doing sports during their leisure time, such as playing a ball game, going camping, hiking or fishing. On the other hand, people whose jobs involve a lot of physical activity may prefer to spend their free time doing quiet, relaxing activities, such as reading books or magazines or watching TV. Some people find that collecting stamps, postcards, badges, model cars or ships, bottles, or antiques is a relaxing hobby.

Free time is organized in many schools and institutions. Schools offer many extra-curricular activities including hobby groups, sports activities, and choirs. Other institutions such as retirement homes and hospitals also offer activities such as clubs and meetings for playing games. .

Most people like socializing with friends for dinner or a drink after a hard day at work. For many young people, having a regular night out a week is a normal part of their free time, whether it is joining friends for a drink in a pub, dining out in a restaurant, watching a film, playing video games or dancing the night away at a club.

Some people do leisure activities that also have a longer-term goal. In some cases, people do a leisure activity that they hope to turn into a full-time activity (e.g., volunteer paramedics who hope to eventually become professional paramedics). Many people also study part-time in evening university or college courses, both for the love of learning, and to help their career prospects.

Cultural differences

Time for leisure varies from one society to the next, although anthropologists have found that hunter-gatherers tend to have significantly more leisure time than people in more complex societies. As a result, band societies such as the Shoshone of the Great Basin came across as extraordinarily lazy to European settlers. [3]

Capitalist societies often view active leisure activities positively, because active leisure activities require the purchase of equipment and services, which stimulates the economy. Capitalist societies often accord greater status to members who have more wealth. One of the ways that wealthy people can choose to spend their money is by having additional leisure time.

Workaholics are those who work compulsively at the expense of other activities. They prefer to work rather than spend time socializing and engaging in other leisure activities. Many see this as a necessary sacrifice to attain high-ranking corporate positions. Increasing attention, however, is being paid to the effects of such imbalance upon the worker and the family.

Throughout its early history, American society was driven by the Protestant work ethic, a cultural view inspired by the Protestant preacher John Calvin.

Slackers are those who avoid work and spend as much time as possible in leisure activities.

Leisure Satisfaction

See also

References

1. ^ Goodin, u Robert E.; Rice, James Mahmud; Bittman, Michael; & Saunders, Peter. (2005). "The time- c pressure illusion: Discretionary time vs. free time". Social Indicators Research k 73 (1), 43–70. (PDF file)
2. ^ The 'u' first appeared in the early 16th century, probably by analogy with words such as pleasure.[1]
3. ^ Farb, Peter (1968). Man's Rise to Civilization As Shown by the Indians of North America from Primeval Times to the Coming of the Industrial State. New York City: E. P. Dutton, 28. LCC E77.F36. “Most people assume that the members of the Shoshone band worked ceaselessly in an unremitting search for sustenance. Such a dramatic picture might appear confirmed by an erroneous theory almost everyone recalls from schooldays: A high culture emerges only when the people have the leisure to build pyramids or to create art. The fact is that high civilization is hectic, and that primitive hunters and collectors of wild food, like the Shoshone, are among the most leisured people on earth. 

External links

Further reading

  • Cross, Gary S. 2004. Encyclopedia of recreation and leisure in America. The Scribner American civilization series. Farmington Hills, MI: Charles Scribner's Sons.
  • Jenkins, John M., and J. J. J. Pigram. 2003. Encyclopedia of leisure and outdoor recreation. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415252261.
Blur are an English rock band formed in Colchester in 1989. The band are comprised of vocalist/keyboardist Damon Albarn, guitarist/vocalist Graham Coxon, bassist/backing vocalist Alex James and drummer/backing vocalist Dave Rowntree.
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Free time is a type of Musical meter free from musical time & time signature. It is used when a piece of music has no discernible beat. Instead, the rhythm is intuitive and free-flowing. There are five ways in which a piece is indicated to be in free time:-

1.
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William Henry Davies (1871 - September 26, 1940), was a Welsh poet and writer. He spent most of his life as a tramp in the United States and United Kingdom, but became known as one of the most popular poets of his time.
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Leisure is a poem by Welsh poet William Henry Davies

<poem> What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare?? No time to stand beneath the boughs, And stare as long as sheep and cows:
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time.

One view is that time is part of the fundamental structure of the universe, a dimension in which events occur in sequence, and time itself is something that can be measured.
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Work may refer to:
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Activity may mean:
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  • Activity, a task.
  • Activity, the ability of a piece to influence the game in chess
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eating (formally, ingestion) is the process of consuming nutrition, i.e. food, for the purpose of providing for the nutritional needs of an animal, particularly their energy requirements and to grow.
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Sleep is the state of natural rest observed throughout the animal kingdom, in all mammals and birds, and in many reptiles, amphibians, and fish.

In humans, other mammals, and many other animals that have been studied — such as fish, birds, ants, and fruit-flies —
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Education encompasses teaching and learning specific skills, and also something less tangible but more profound: the imparting of knowledge, positive judgment and well-developed wisdom.
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For the Daft Punk album, see .


Homework, short for homework assignment, refers to tasks assigned to students by their teachers to be completed mostly outside of class, and derives its name from the fact that most students do most of such
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House work is a specific work required to be done as a duty or for a specific fee, related to or used in the running of a household.
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Victorian era of the United Kingdom marked the height of the British Industrial Revolution and the apex of the British Empire. Although commonly used to refer to the period of Queen Victoria's rule between 1837 and 1901, scholars debate whether the Victorian period—as defined
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United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 until 12 April 1927. It was formed by the merger of the Kingdom of Great Britain (itself having been a merger of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland) and the Kingdom of
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Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation had a profound effect on socioeconomic and cultural conditions in Britain and subsequently spread throughout the world, a process that
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A trade union or labour union is an organization of workers. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members ("rank and file" members) and negotiates labor contracts with employers.
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business magnate, sometimes referred to as a mogul, tycoon, baron, or industrialist, is a person who has reached a prominent place in a particular industry (or set of industries) and whose wealth has been derived primarily therefrom.
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Rail transport is the transport of passengers and goods by means of wheeled vehicles specially designed to run along railways or railroads. Rail transport is part of the logistics chain, which facilitates the international trading and economic growth in most countries.
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A package holiday or package tour consists of transport and accommodation advertised and sold together by a vendor known as a tour operator. Other services may be provided like a rental car, activities or outings during the holiday.
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Europe is one of the seven traditional continents of the Earth. Physically and geologically, Europe is the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, west of Asia. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Sea,
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North America is a continent [1] in the Earth's northern hemisphere and (chiefly) western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the south and west
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The entertainment industry (much of which is informally known as show business or show biz) consists of a large number of sub-industries devoted to entertainment.
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The weekend is a part of the week lasting one or two days in which most paid workers do not work. This is a time for leisure and recreation, and/or for religious activities.
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Walking is the main form of animal locomotion on land, distinguished from running and crawling. When carried out in shallow waters, it is usually described as wading and when performed over a steeply rising object or an obstacle it becomes scrambling
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Yoga (Sanskrit: योग Yoga, IPA: [joːgə]) is a group of ancient spiritual practices originating in India.
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