Reducing adolescent substance use is important in South Africa, a developing nation with increasing adolescent substance use, lack of leisure/recreation opportunities, and high rates of adolescent discretionary time. Previous research suggests leisure boredom and adolescent substance use co-occur in this setting. Using longitudinal data from 2,580 South African adolescents as they progressed from the 8th to 11th grade, the current study disentangles the associations of trait and state leisure boredom with substance use, and examines how ability to restructure boring situations moderates those associations. On average, individuals with higher trait boredom used more substances, and on occasions when state boredom was high, the prototypical adolescent used more substances. Although restructuring did not moderate these associations, greater ability was associated with lower substance use independent of leisure boredom. Findings illustrated the importance of considering how trait and state aspects of leisure may contribute to adolescents’ risk behavior and addressed through preventive intervention.

Education is one of the strongest predictors of health worldwide. In South Africa, school dropout is a crisis where by Grade 12, only 52% of the age appropriate population remain enrolled. Survival analysis was used to identify the risk of dropping out of secondary school for male and female adolescents and examine the influence of substance use and leisure experience predictors while controlling for demographic and known predictors using secondary, longitudinal data. Results indicated being male, not living with one’s mother, smoking cigarettes in the past month, and lower levels of leisure-related intrinsic motivation significantly predicted dropout. Results support comprehensive prevention programmes that target risk behaviour and leisure.

This article examines the association between boredom in leisure and risky sexual behaviors among South African youth (N = 1695) using longitudinal data. We hypothesized that youth who were higher on boredom in leisure at the end of ninth grade would be more likely to report engaging in risky sexual behaviors at the beginning of tenth grade. Chi-square results indicate youth, especially male youth who experience high levels of leisure boredom in ninth grade, are more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors in tenth grade. These findings have implications for prevention programs that aim to delay sexual initiation, reduce sexual risk behaviors, and decrease the transmission of HIV and AIDS. The findings support the need for additional research on how the reduction of leisure boredom may be a potential target for reducing sexual risk among youth.

Leisure is an important developmental context in adolescence and emerging adulthood due to its role promoting healthy development and mitigating risk behavior. Empirical work has focused on the benefits and risks of activities and time use in these life stages, but the influence of subjective perceptions of leisure is often ignored. Furthermore, researchers lack consistent conceptualization of the terms healthy leisure and unhealthy leisure. Given this, the current study used a two-phased qualitative design collecting free-listing (n_subjects = 158) and focus group (n_subjects = 29; n_groups = 4) data on the perceived meanings of healthy leisure and unhealthy leisure in college students. Guided by free-listing results, focus group data were analyzed for commonalities. Descriptors of healthy were restorative, self-determined, and including a social element while unhealthy was excessive, lacked self-control, and included elements of escape. Findings illustrate the challenge of labeling leisure activity as healthy or unhealthy independent of contextual and individual factors and inform measurement development.