The way we view free time is making us less happy

Equally, the way we chase top-notch leisure experiences has made recreation more stressful than ever. High expectations may clash with our experienced reality, making it feel anti-climactic, while trying to concoct the best vacation or leisure experience ever can fuel performativity.

today we’re seeing yet another transition: a lack of leisure time now operates as a powerful status symbol. “On Twitter, celebrities ‘humblebrag’ about ‘having no life’ and ‘being in desperate need of a vacation’,” she points out. In the workplace, being part of the long-hours working culture is still seen by many as a badge of honour.

Part of the problem, new research shows, is how comprehensively we internalise the message that leisure is wasteful.

Participants from India and America, both nations with overwork cultures, endorsed the belief that leisure is wasteful more strongly than participants from France, which has social norms, “less restrictive of enjoying life and having fun”. In fact, while Malkoc estimates about 30% of the population endorses the ‘leisure is wasteful’ belief on avera... See more

Economists call the idea that we must maximise our time off the intensification of the value of our leisure time.

“our ability to purchase and enjoy goods and services has risen much more rapidly than the amount of time available for us to enjoy them”. This pressure manifests in our decisions. “We feel like we want to have the best bang for our buck and minutes,”

The ability to enjoy terminal leisure (as an end in itself) is a stronger predictor of wellbeing than enjoyment of instrumental leisure, the study showed.

research shows that both having and deciding how to spend leisure time can be very stressful. Some people feel enormous pressure to maximise their downtime with the best choices: researching more, anticipating and spending more money. But, as data prove, this pressure to maximise our fun might get in the way of our enjoyment of leisure itself.

“This means that those who complain the most about not having enough free time are wealthy and educated.” That fuels the idea that we must maximise leisure’s ‘hedonic utility’, or enjoyment value, when we actually do get some time off – and make every hour count.