Adolescents’ Self-Esteem Associated with Solitary, Passive, and Active Leisure Activities

Abstract

Adolescents enjoy their free time in different ways including solitary, passive, and active leisure activities. The current special circumstance, the COVID-19 pandemic, provides adolescents with more free time that individuals have to spend by themselves. However, there has been little research devoted to their participation in different leisure activities and its effect on adolescent self-esteem. This study examined current adolescents’ self-esteem levels and frequency of participation among solitary, passive, and active leisure activities and how participation in different types of leisure activities affects adolescent self-esteem. A total of 1759 adolescents self-reported 13 self-esteem items and the frequency of different types of leisure activities. The results revealed that 12 items of the self-esteem scale were higher scores than the average among adolescents in this sample. Adolescents spent significantly more time on solitary leisure activity (M = 4.85) than passive (M = 2.54) and active leisure activities (M = 3.51). The results of regression indicated that solitary activities (β = 0.068, p = 0.007) and sport/exercise (β = 0.267, p < 0.001) and hanging with friends (β = 0.113, p < 0.001) of active leisure activities were positively associated with adolescent self-esteem. The findings suggest that parents, teachers, and administrators should recognize and apply appropriate directions or programs to optimize adolescents’ self-esteem by developing suitable leisure activities. It could be helpful to provide other active leisure activities such as socialized clubs or extracurricular physical activities to improve their self-esteem.

1. Introduction

Adolescents have more opportunities and time to pursue leisure activities such as youth sports, social interactions, and family activities [1,2]. Leisure time among adolescents can be defined as the time outside of obligatory school hours during which they are free to choose organized or unorganized activities [3]. The U.S. Department of Labor [4] indicates that adolescents have 5.5 h of free time, which is about 57 percent of their available time excluding sleep and school. Approximately 300 million people worldwide are one-person households, a number which is expected to increase in Korea (43%), Australia (48%), England (60%), and France (75%) between 2025–2030 [5,6,7]. More specifically, the United States Census Bureau [8] indicated that 16.7 percent of households were one person in 1969, which increased to 28.4 percent of the U.S. population by 2019. Although the percentage rise was not as dramatic in some other countries, the number of one-person households has increased steadily in the U.S. The importance of leisure activities has gained further attention as individuals have more time to spend on individual leisure activities, as the population of one-person households has increased [8,9]. Spending leisure activities alone relates not only to one-person households but also to adolescents [1].

1.1. Leisure Activities and Adolescents

Previous literature indicated that adolescents enjoy their leisure time in several ways [10]. Many adolescents filled their leisure time by actively participating in team sports, which provide exercise and physical activity [11,12,13,14,15]. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [16], approximately 54 percent of high school students participated in at least one team sport, a percentage that remained relatively stable for 20 years. The studies also indicated that adolescents spent their leisure time meeting friends and were more likely to be physically active with their friends [11,13,14]. Previous findings also indicated that adolescents enjoyed their leisure time through involvement in community affairs or volunteer work [17,18]. Thus, active leisure activity participation such as involving social work, hanging with friends, and physical activity, exercise, and sport can play an important role in adolescents’ free time.

On the other hand, the frequency of passive leisure activities has increased dramatically over the last decades [4]. More specifically, adolescents were likely to spend more leisure time doing passive activities such as watching TV, playing video games, or using their mobile phone [11,19]. More than one-quarter (27.0%) of adolescents spent 2 h or less per day watching TV or using a computer [20]. Leisure reading was also a frequent passive leisure activity, such as reading books, magazines, and newspapers [10]. However, previous studies indicate that adolescents were more likely to spend time visiting friends, one of the most common social leisure activities other than passive leisure activities [21].

Along with the increase in passive leisure activity participation for adolescents, solitary leisure was closely related to adolescents’ lifestyles [1,22]. The study aimed by Abbott-Chapman & Robertson [22] that adolescents were required privacy and their own space to enjoy their leisure activities away from adult surveillance. In addition, the current special circumstance, COVID-19, has forced mandatory social distancing, which has increased the solitary leisure time of adolescents. However, few studies have examined solitary leisure activities and their effects among adolescents.

1.2. Self-Esteem, Adolescents, and Leisure Activities

Self-esteem can be defined as an individual’s judgment of positive or negative feelings or attitudes toward themselves [23,24]. Previous studies found that self-esteem was positively associated with body image, psychological health, quality of life, and social adjustment and was consequently a critical factor for an individual’s well-being [25,26]. Further, self-esteem is an important factor for individuals to live alongside others [27]. Previous literature researched several factors that improve or hinder adolescent self-esteem such as demographics, personality, lifestyle, primary and secondary groups, and school performance [28,29,30,31]. For instance, McClure et al. [29] determined many risk and protective factors with covariates such as sex, race, and weight status that were associated with young adolescents’ self-esteem. The results indicated that female, Hispanic, and overweight and obese adolescents had lower self-esteem [29]. Previous studies also examined whether there was a positive relationship between parenting style and adolescents’ self-esteem [28,32]. As previous research examined, adolescence is a very sensitive period, and adolescents’ self-esteem is affected by a lot of different factors, including physical, psychological, and social factors.

Among different factors, the relationship between self-esteem and leisure activities among adolescents has been addressed in previous research [10,29,33]. More specifically, there have been well-documented studies about the effects of active leisure activities such as sport, exercise, and physical activities on adolescent self-esteem [34,35,36,37]. Biddle and Asare [34] reviewed the mental health outcomes for particular depressive symptoms, anxiety, self-esteem, and cognitive functioning associated with physical activity in adolescents. The results indicated that the strongest self-esteem effects were shown among adolescents. Another study conducted a systematic review of physical activity that resulted in a positive association with heightened self-esteem among adolescents [33]. McClure and colleagues [29] determined how school performance and team sport participation affected self-esteem among U.S. adolescents. The results showed that adolescents who participated in team sports had a lower risk for poor self-esteem. Kort-Butler and Hagewen [38] compared the levels of self-esteem of participants and non-participants in sports and extracurricular activities. The results indicated that participants in sports clubs had significantly higher self-esteem levels.

Research has also focused on passive leisure activities and their effects on self-esteem among adolescents [29,39]. Martins and Harrison [40] showed that television exposure was a negative predictor for self-esteem for White and Black girls and Black boys, and a positive predictor among White boys. Another study on social network service (SNS) use and its effects on self-esteem among adolescents showed that the frequency of SNS use was significantly correlated with lower self-esteem [39]. Previous studies also indicated that cell phones and internet use correlated to higher overall self-esteem among adolescents [41].

1.3. The Present Study

Thus, the relationship between participation in leisure activities and self-esteem levels among adolescents has been well documented; however, little research has been devoted to participation in solitary leisure activities and its effect on adolescent self-esteem. Additionally, no studies have been conducted on the relationship between solitary, passive, and active leisure activities and their effects on self-esteem among adolescents. Thus, the primary aims of the present study were determined to be: (1) determine the levels of self-esteem of adolescents in this sample and (2) compare them to the frequency of participation among solitary, passive, and active leisure activities; (3) determine whether there exists a difference in the frequency of participation among solitary, passive, and active leisure activities; and (4) discern how participation in different types of leisure activities influences adolescents’ self-esteem.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Study Design

This study was a cross-sectional analysis of data drawn from the survey, “Monitoring the future: A continuing study of American youth” [42]. This survey was part of a longitudinal study that has been conducted over more than 10 years in order to analyze trends in important values, behaviors, and lifestyle orientations among American youth. More specifically, this current study utilized the parts of the survey that include American adolescents’ consumption of leisure activities and feelings of self-esteem.

2.2. Participants

Adolescents in the 12th grade were randomly assigned to complete one of six questionnaires that each had a different set of topical questions. This study utilized the sixth data subset because data 6 provided data on the topic of the current study. A total of 2424 12th-grade adolescents completed the survey, but 665 surveys were removed due to incomplete questionnaires. Following the removal of invalid surveys, 1759 of surveys were useable. 925 were completed by women (52.8%), while 831 were completed by male adolescents (47.8%). Analyses of the adolescents’ demographics found that more than half the adolescents were White (64.2%), followed by Hispanic (21.9%), Black (8.8%), and others (5.1%).

2.3. Measurement

Adolescents were asked to measure a total of 13 self-esteem scale items. Six self-esteem items were directly from the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale [24], one of the most common questionnaires. Seven other items were modified from other self-esteem questionnaires for the convenience and clarity of adolescents’ understandings of self-esteem [43,44,45,46,47]. The questions were rated on a five-point Likert scale, with: 1 = “Disagree”, 2 = “Mostly Disagree”, 3 = “Neither”, 4 = “Mostly Agree”, and 5 = “Agree” (Table 1).

The frequency of solitary, passive, and active leisure activities in this sample was investigated by asking: “How often do you do each of following?”. The frequency of solitary leisure activity was assessed by asking whether adolescents “Spend at least an hour of leisure time alone.” Additionally, “Watch TV”, “Read news”, and “Read magazines” were selected as a variable for passive leisure activity, whereas “Actively participate in sports, athletics or exercising”, “Participate in community affairs or volunteer work”, and “Get together with friends, informally” were chosen as variables for active leisure activity for this current study. Each item was measured using a six-point Likert scale for the frequency of activity with: 1 = “Never”, 2 = “Seldom”, 3 = “Sometimes”, 4 = “Most Days”, 5 = “Nearly Every Day”, and 6 = “Every Day”.

The reliability test was evaluated by Cronbach’s alpha to verify the internal consistency of the Likert scale. In this current study, the reliability of 13 self-esteem items (α = 0.927) was confirmed by a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient measurement. The internal consistency of seven leisure activities were appropriated to utilize the data (α = 0.720). More specifically, the interrater correlation coefficient was tested to examine the interrater consistency of each leisure activity. The results confirmed both passive leisure activities (α = 0.719) and active leisure activities (α = 0.709) were reliable to analyze the data.

2.4. Data Analysis

The data were analyzed by Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 24 (SPSS 24) to measure data reliability, the demographic characteristics of participants, mean scores of self-esteem items, and the frequency of solitary, passive, and active leisure activities. Measurement of the paired t-test was utilized to compare the mean scores among the frequency of solitary, passive, and active leisure activities among adolescents, with alpha set at 0.05. The multiple regression analysis was tested to determine whether there are linear effects of adolescents’ solitary, passive, and active leisure activities on their self-esteem by calculating the regression coefficients.

3. Results

The results of the self-esteem scale showed adolescents in this sample were for the most part higher than the average for self-esteem (M = 3.68) (Table 1). More specifically, adolescents in this study had the highest score on self-esteem items such as “It feels good to be alive” followed by “I am able to do things as well as most other people” and “I feel I am a person of worth” (Table 1). The lowest score for self-esteem among adolescents was “I am often bored” followed by “Sometimes I think that I am no good at all”.

The mean comparison among the frequency of solitary, passive, and active leisure activities is displayed in Table 2. The results showed solitary leisure activities were adolescents’ most frequent activities. More than 65 percent of adolescents in this sample spent at least an hour of leisure time alone every day or almost every day. In contrast, approximately four-fifths of adolescents in this sample never read a magazine (80.9%) or newspaper (82.3%) or did so only a few times a year.

The paired sample t-test was tested to compare the frequency of solitary, passive, and active leisure activities. The results indicated that the frequency of adolescents’ active leisure activities was statistically higher than their passive leisure activities. The results also found that solitary leisure was significantly higher than the mean scores of passive and active leisure activities (Table 3).

Prior to conducting the multiple regression analysis to determine how leisure activities influence adolescents’ self-esteem, the variance inflation factor (VIF) was tested to detect the multicollinearity of the data (Table 4). The result indicated VIF ranged from 1.031 to 1.390, which confirmed the use of the regression analysis [48].

The results of multiple regression analysis indicated that solitary leisure activities were significantly associated with adolescents’ self-esteem. Among active leisure activities, sport and exercise participation and hanging out with friends were statistically significant predictors of self-esteem among adolescents in this sample. However, there were no relationships between the passive leisure activities and self-esteem (Table 3).

4. Discussion

This current study attempted to examine the levels of solitary, passive, and active leisure activities and their effects on self-esteem among adolescents. The findings from this study showed adolescents had mainly positive self-esteem levels. The results provided that self-esteem levels among adolescents were more likely to be higher on positive self-esteem items, while adolescents tended to have lower scores on negative items. In other words, the negative items (reverse-keyed items) tended to have lower scores even if the scores were coded reversely (Table 1). Previous research also found that individuals with high and low self-esteem could answer similarly to positive input, but they might provide different responses to negative input because individuals with high self-esteem were likely to be affected by restricting the scope of negative feedback [49]. The researcher assumed that adolescents might agree with their positive self-esteem when it was expressed by positive examples (items). Previous research supports this finding that indicated that happy adolescents had significantly higher scores on school, interpersonal, and intrapersonal variables which included self-esteem levels [50]. Thus, adolescents can be encouraged to have higher positive self-esteem through positive attitudes and thoughts about their life.

4.1. Solitary, Passive, and Active Leisure Activities

It has been well-documented that adolescents’ self-esteem was positively affected by active leisure activities such as sport and exercise participation, socialization with friends, or involvement in community services. The current study particularly undertook a direct comparison of solitary, passive, and active leisure activities. The results indicated that adolescents were more likely to be actively participating in sport and exercise activities or hanging out with friends during their leisure time than participating in passive leisure activities. A previous study supports the current finding that adolescents enjoyed more time hanging out with friends as an active leisure activity rather than reading a book as a passive leisure activity [3]. Interestingly, previous studies reported the opposite results, finding in Korean and Ecuadorian adolescents that adolescents spent more time in passive leisure activities than active leisure activities [10,51]. It is noteworthy that these different results might be due to different school systems, culture, and/or demographic characteristics.

However, adolescents significantly enjoyed solitary leisure activities more than passive or active leisure activities. This might be understandable considering that the previous literature found that work, study, and leisure activities have become blurred due to the development of mobile technologies so that individuals always can provide opportunities to enjoy their leisure time [52]. Another supportive finding by Abbott-Chapman and Robertson [22] indicated that many adolescents enjoyed being in their favorite places or their own bedrooms to pursue activities away from adult surveillance. Among passive leisure activities, watching TV was the most frequent, while adolescents were less likely to read newspapers and magazines. This could be directly related to increasing solitary leisure time because now adolescents can read books and magazines anytime and anywhere by utilizing their mobile devices or computers. Watching TV is still a popular passive leisure activity, but mobile devices and computers will soon be able to replace the TV [20]. Adolescents do not need to wait for a certain time to watch their favorite shows or read new books. They can watch anything they want anytime and anywhere through their smartphones or other devices. This phenomenon might provoke adolescents’ spending more time in solitary and passive leisure activities.

4.2. Leisure Activities and Self-Esteem

Assessing the relationship between self-esteem and different types of leisure activities, the results showed that participation in sport and exercise was positively associated with self-esteem levels. According to Bang, Won, and Park [53], adolescents’ sport participation positively influenced their self-esteem levels, which supports the current results. The finding also confirmed previous research that found school-based extracurricular sport participants had a significantly higher mean level of self-esteem compared to non-participants [38]. The study by McClure et al. also supports the current finding that team sports participants had a lower risk of poor self-esteem [29]. A more recent study by Gomez-Baya and colleagues indicated that a higher frequency of sport participation was a positive predictor for building adolescents’ self-esteem levels, which is directly supportive of the current results [54]. Participating in organized sports affects adolescents positively by developing athletic skill, social skills with their friends, and nonacademic competencies, which consequently results in greater self-esteem [55,56]. The findings of the current study also showed the positive relationship between solitary leisure and self-esteem among adolescents. This could be understood as being a consequence of adolescents needing their own space to enjoy their leisure activities freely. Pursuing leisure activities alone in an independent space might increase adolescents’ self-esteem. The previous research has emphasized the need for a private space for adolescents [22]. Another possibility might be that adolescents can socialize through solitary leisure activities. For instance, adolescents sometimes enjoy their leisure time by taking pictures of themselves and posting to social media like Instagram or Facebook. In this case, it sounds ironic, but this solitary activity might enable adolescents to increase their self-esteem by communicating and socializing with others. Previous studies support the current finding that more solitary activities may generate psychological benefits by providing a sense of engagement with life [57]. This suggestion is also supported by the current finding of a positive relationship between hanging out with friends as an active leisure activity and self-esteem among adolescents. In other words, adolescents may improve their self-esteem by getting together with friends without the restriction of social or physical distancing. Adolescents are still able to meet and enjoy their leisure time though social media or smartphones, even if they cannot meet each other in person. Thus, these solitary and active leisure activities might enhance adolescents’ self-esteem.

4.3. Limitations and Future Directions

While the current findings provide meaningful information about leisure activities and self-esteem among adolescents, it is important to recognize the study’s limitations and to suggest possible future directions. One of the primary limitations is the linguistic ambiguity of the clarification of solitary leisure, even if this study assessed it by asking the amount of time spent alone. However, some activities in this research can be solitary leisure as well as passive or active leisure activities. For instance, reading a book or magazine was assessed as a passive leisure activity, but researchers could not figure out whether adolescents spent time to read by themselves or not. If so, it might be a category of solitary leisure activity as well. Future research efforts should consider assessing the concrete survey questions and clarifying the classifications for solitary, passive, and active leisure activities. An important limitation was the lack of knowledge about the current sample as this study only specifies for sex and race as demographic characteristics. Future studies should specify adolescents’ demographic characteristics such as family conditions, geographical location, and socioeconomic status of family so that they could determine how these can affect this study’s conclusions. Finally, this study represented passive and active leisure activities with only three items that would be hard to generalize to all leisure activities. Future studies should provide more items for each leisure activity.

5. Conclusions

The objective of the current study was to achieve a better understanding of adolescents’ different types of leisure activities and their effects on self-esteem. Over the past decades, the importance of adolescents’ positive development through leisure activities has increased. In general, this current study indicates that adolescents who spent their leisure time alone benefit from appropriate direction on how to handle their leisure time. Thus, it would be important to show how solitary leisure activities impact adolescents’ positive development in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, this study provides insight into the benefits of sports and exercise participation and getting together with friends on adolescents’ self-esteem. Furthermore, parents, teachers, and school administrators might need to recognize the importance of applicable leisure activities and consider how to optimize adolescents’ self-esteem through appropriate direction or programs. For instance, an expansion of physical education classes or afterschool sport, exercise, or physical activity programs might be necessary to encourage adolescents’ self-esteem. Additionally, it might be helpful to provide social or extracurricular clubs for adolescents to enhance their self-esteem. Thus, this study may support teachers, administrations, and parents to effectively optimize adolescents’ self-esteem by developing suitable leisure activities.

Author Contributions

D.C. designed and provide the draft. S.K.K. modified and edited the manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was supported by the “Dongseo Cluster Project” Research Fund of 2022 (DSU-20220005), Dongseo University.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The research was conducted retrospectively from the public-use data files from the National Addiction & HIV Data Archive Program (NAHDAP) that is supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institute of Health (NIH).

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the ICPSR (37416) repository, https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37416.v1 (accessed on 1 November 2020).

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Tables

Table 1

Results of Mean and Standard Deviation for Adolescents’ Self-esteem Items.

Self-Esteem Scale Items	M	SD
I take a positive attitude toward myself	3.82	1.146
Life often seems meaningless 1	3.57	1.275
I feel I do not have much to be proud of 1	3.63	1.294
I feel I am a person of worth	3.92	1.147
I enjoy life as much as anyone	3.79	1.165
Sometimes I think that I am no good at all 1	3.39	1.350
I am able to do things as well as most other people	3.93	1.017
The future often seems hopeless 1	3.75	1.271
I feel that I can’t do anything right 1	3.68	1.265
On the whole, I’m satisfied with myself	3.77	1.184
I feel that my life is not very useful 1	3.81	1.244
It feels good to be alive	4.11	1.065
I am often bored 1	2.71	1.251
Total	3.68	0.883

Note: 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 “disagree” to 3 “neither” to 5 “agree”. “¹” Reverse-keyed items.

Table 2

Results of Mean and Standard Deviation, and Mean Comparison among Frequency of Passive, Active, and Solitary Leisure Activities.

Frequency of Leisure Activities	M	SD
Solitary Leisure Activities	4.85	1.30
Passive Leisure Activities	2.54	0.75
Watching TV	4.30	1.29
Reading newspapers	1.64	1.02
Reading magazine	1.66	0.97
Active Leisure Activities	3.51	0.91
Sport/Exercise	4.05	1.67
Volunteer activities	2.37	1.11
Hanging with friends	4.11	1.19

Table 3

The Paired Sample t-test among Frequency of Passive, Active, and Solitary Leisure Activities.

	df	Std. Error	t	p-Value
Solitary vs. Passive Leisure	1758	0.034	67.41	p < 0.001
Passive vs. Active Leisure	1758	0.026	−37.28	p < 0.001
Active vs. Solitary Leisure	1758	0.037	−35.89	p < 0.001

Note: 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 “never” to 3 “1 to 2 times a month” to 6 “every day”.

Table 4

Unstandardized Regression Coefficient (B), Standardized Coefficient (β), and Standard Error (SE) for Adolescents’ Solitary, Passive, and Active Leisure Activities on Self-esteem.

	UnstandardizedCoefficients		Standardized Coefficients
	B	Std. Err	β	t	p-Value
Constant	3.016	0.186		16.253	<0.001
Sex	−0.076	0.045	−0.043	−1.676	0.094
Race	−0.112	0.039	−0.071	−2.834	0.005
Solitary Leisure Activities	0.048	0.018	0.068	2.689	0.007
Passive Leisure Activities
Watching TV	−0.026	0.017	−0.038	−1.523	0.128
Reading magazine	0.025	0.027	0.027	0.835	0.355
Reading newspaper	−0.023	0.026	−0.026	−0.892	0.373
Active Leisure Activities
Sport/Exercise	0.141	0.014	0.267	10.090	<0.001
Volunteer activities	0.023	0.020	0.029	1.113	0.266
Hanging with friends	0.084	0.019	0.113	4.375	<0.001

Notes. R² = 0.126, F = 22.899, p < 0.001.

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