House Arrest, Adolescent Unrest: Leisure Activities During Pandemic, Scenario of South Asian Countries

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Akhand Sharma, Chandrakanta Jain , Udit Malaiya

Abstract

The educational and social life of adolescents has been transformed in the last one and a half years, due to the global pandemic COVID-19.  In order, to control, the expansion of this virus during the second wave (Feb.-August 2021), as it is a severe acute respiratory syndrome with modified features, all the educational institutions had been closed and even board examinations of central as well as state boards were cancelled. Students were forced to stay at home and classes were organised through online mode. Now adolescents, spend most of their time with their smartphones for attending their online classes as well as during their leisure time for socialising with their peers.


The specific objective of the study is to examine the leisure time activities of adolescents during the second wave. The study is a cross-cultural study of 460 adolescents in the age group of (16-18) years studying in senior secondary class (Grade XIIth) in South Asian countries; India, Maldives, and Bhutan. The study has used tools such as Leisure Interest Measure (LIM by Ragheb and Beard, 1992) and a structured key information schedule designed for studying smartphone usage patterns (SPUP) for collecting information. AMOS 23, NVivo 12 and other statistical packages have been used for analysing the data, to test the model designed for studying leisure time activities and their effects. The results of the study focus on digital leisure and the health problems associated with it. The findings of the study will be helpful in policy formulation related to adolescents' technology usage and the effective use of their leisure time  The study concluded that excess use of technology either for educational or any other purpose has a bad impact on the psycho-physiological health of adolescents and it requires serious attention.

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