ADOLESCENTS AND AMUSEMENT: IS THERE ANY REASON TO BE CONCERNED?

According to many researches amusement is a dominant leisure activity of youngsters. It is an unstructured activity which mostly has negative effects on adolescent’s development.This work deals with: (1) types and frequency of amusement activities, (2) patterns of leisure activities related to amusement, (3) values that differentiate adolescents oriented towards amusement and those how are not. The sample consisted of 2426 secondary-school students. The leisure activities questioner and Value scale have been applied. Results: The most frequent leisure activities are related to amusement: hanging out with friends, watching TV, using a cell phone. Although going out, watching TV and spending time at computers are not found to be dangerously time consuming they have negative effects on school achievement and potentially risky influence on the adolescent’s well being. Three out of five behavior patterns during leisure time are related to amusement: orientation towards entertainment media, spending time at computers and listening to music, going out. The values of adolescents who are inclined to these three behavior patterns differ from values of those not interested in amusement. While amusement activities, alone, are not a concern, their dominance may become problematic. There is a need for systematic engagement of relevant agents in the prevention of negative outcomes of unstructured activities by providing support for adolescents’ participation in structured activities