Routine leisure activities: opportunity and risk in adolescence / Rutinas de tiempo libre: oportunidad y riesgo en la adolescencia

Abstract

In order to differentiate between types of routine leisure activities and to evaluate their corresponding protection/risk value in adolescent development, we performed a study with a sample of 218 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 14 years by asking them to fill out a grid that analysed their daily routines. The results are presented here. They were required to account for each hour of a weekday by specifying whether they were awake or asleep, the place they were at, who they were with, and what type of activity they were engaged in. A group of these adolescents (N = 59) were considered to be at risk (they formed part of a social integration and marginalization prevention program), whereas the rest (comparison group) were their classmates. A multiple correspondence analysis was performed, revealing the existence of four adolescent typologies according to daily routines. The analysis showed that the routines incorporating a greater variety of leisure activities, as well as more creative, organized, and supervised activities, were associated with adolescents who possessed a more normative development, whereas more monotonous, unstructured and unsupervised activities tended to be characteristic of adolescent development at risk.