Semantics of Play and Work Among Children

I Have to do it, but I like it: The Sense of Enjoyment and Obligation in Adolescents’ Organized Leisure-Time Activities

“…Sivan & Siu, 2021;Watkins & Bond, 2007). Here, one can find parallels to the conceptual dichotomy between play as enjoyable and work as obligatory (Mobily et al, 1991;Øksnes, 2008). However, the results of our study do not support such a perspective.…”

“…Obligation, in contrast, is often considered as something which does not belong to leisure time: the lack of obligation has been repeatedly identified as one of the defining characteristics of leisure (e.g., Sivan & Siu, 2021;Watkins & Bond, 2007). Thus, obligation in adolescents' activities has been conceptualized as the opposite of enjoyment (Mobily et al, 1991). However, some researchers have noted that adolescents' leisure-time activities can also involve elements of obligation (Shaw et al, 1996).…”

“…Enjoyment has, rather unequivocally, been identified as an essential part of leisure time in general (e.g., Shaw, 1985), and of adolescents' OLTA in particular (e.g., Mahoney et al, 2005). Children's enjoyment of their leisure time has mainly been linked with opportunities to play (Lehto & Eskelinen, 2020), to have fun (Mobily et al, 1991), to socialize with peers, and to have freedom to decide what to do (at least within the limits set by adults) (Haglund & Anderson, 2009;Simoncini et al, 2015). In a study of how Norwegian children interpret leisure, Øksnes (2008) found that most of the 1 Mahoney et al (2006) identify this amount as around five hours a week on average among US adolescents, whereas leisure time is said to represent about 40-50% of the waking time of adolescents in Western countries.…”