Engagement in leisure activities: changes mediated by technologies

Abstract

Purpose: Motivated by individual choices or reflections of a culture, older people engage in different leisure activities in order to foster social interactions, feelings of pleasure, creativity, personal enrichment, entertainment, affect production, and to protect physical and cognitive health (Iwasa,Yoshida, 2018; Yoon et al., 2020). In many of these activities, technology has been a mediating resource for leisure participation. Thus, the purpose of the study was to understand how technologies influence engagement in leisure activities. Method: A qualitative research was carried out with 42 older people between the months of December 2018 and March 2020. The research was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Federal Institute of Rio de Janeiro - Brazil. A sociodemographic questionnaire was applied to characterize the sample and interviews were conducted to understand the changes in the participation and engagement of the older people in leisure activities. The interviews were categorized by content analysis (Bardin, 2011). Results and discussion: Most of the participants were female, married, living with other people, and residing in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The average age was 70 years (SD: 7.74), 10 years of schooling and varied income. The technological evolution and the computerization of information have stood out as factors responsible for the changes in the ways of performing leisure activities, especially for those of low demand for physical effort, represented by reading, listening to music, watching movies, and going to the stadiums to watch team games. It was verified that reading a newspaper or magazine in physical format, watching concerts in cultural centers, going to the cinema and/or listening to the radio are activities that are now done via computers, Smartphones or Smart TV, since Internet access and the existence of multifunctional technologies have allowed access, in real time, to local and global events, as well as favoring leisure activities at home, while maintaining comfort and safety (Silva, Figueiredo, Santos, 2015). Furthermore, participants with sensory impairments - visual or hearing - were able to use the accessibility features available in the technologies to ensure that leisure activities were carried out in an adapted manner (Oliveira, Hessel e Pesce, 2020). On the other hand, technological evolution itself has led to the abandonment of activities by imposing new ways of performing them. In high-demand leisure, some participants reported giving up cycling after they purchased their cars, justified by convenience or age. The modifications showed the possibility of technologies being mediators of leisure activities in a more economical, accessible, and safe way, but, at the same time, it leads to reflections about healthy aging when considering the low level of participation in leisure activities that promote socialization and/or the reduced involvement in leisure activities that require more physical effort.