Predicting substance use behavior among South African adolescents: The role of leisure experiences across time

Abstract

Using seven waves of data, collected twice a year from the 8th through the 11th grades in a low-resource community in Cape Town, South Africa, we aimed to describe the developmental trends in three specific leisure experiences (leisure boredom, new leisure interests, and healthy leisure) and substance use (cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana) behaviors and to investigate the ways in which changes in leisure experiences predict changes in substance use behaviors over time. Results indicated that adolescents’ substance use increased significantly across adolescence, but that leisure experiences remained fairly stable over time. We also found that adolescent leisure experiences predicted baseline substance use and that changes in leisure experiences predicted changes in substance use behaviors over time, with leisure boredom emerging as the most consistent and strongest predictor of alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use. Implications for interventions that target time use and leisure experiences are discussed.

Dimensions of self-selected leisure activities, trait coping and their relationships with sleep quality and depressive symptoms

“…Recent research highlights general dimensions of leisure coping such as a self-determination disposition, empowerment, positive impact, companionship, boredom and palliative coping (Carruthers & Hood, 2007;Iso-Ahola & Mannell, 2004;Iwasaki & Mannell, 2004;Sharp et al, 2011). Other work suggests that absorbing or engrossing oneself in the SSLA (but not relaxing) as an important moderator to the health effects of leisure (Zawadzki, Smyth, Merritt, & Gerin, 2013b).…”

“…Experience sampling studies that track people's engagement in SSLAs and resultant mood, stress and momentary health levels would also help to reveal how SSLAs have their effect, and whether the SSLA dimensions are differentially related to different outcomes (Siddiquee et al, 2016;Zawadzki et al, 2015). For instance, in a four-year study of South African adolescents, each unit increase in leisure boredom at baseline was associated with notable increases in the likelihood of having used alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana in the previous 4 weeks (Sharp et al, 2011). So, then a longitudinal approach will afford us a more precise picture of how SSLAs and related mechanisms relate to daily health when persons are doing them versus when they are not doing them.…”

Using tablet in solitude for stress reduction: An examination of desire for aloneness, leisure boredom, tablet activities, and location of use

“…In fact, Phillips (1993) has suggested that having an abundance of time is central to boredom. Past research have mostly investigated the negative consequences of leisure boredom such as risk behavior among adolescents (Wegner & Flisher, 2009), school dropout (Wegnera, Flisherb, Chikobvud, Lombardd, & Kingf, 2008), substance use (Sharp et al, 2011), mobile phone addiction (Leung, 2008), and gambling behavior (Mercera & Eastwooda, 2010), among others.…”

Perception of freedom in leisure among substance users and nonusers

“…Sharp et al (2011) conducted a longitudinal study on three leisure experiences with 1,118 adolescents (boring experiences, new experiences and healthy experiences). The authors used the tool Leisure Experience Battery for Adolescents and found that those who engaged more frequently in activities considered tedious increased their chances of consumption by 36% (especially alcohol).…”