RESEARCH General Education

COLLEGE STUDENTS
Study examines 'other' leisure pursuits, such as drug use, gambling

Melissa Mitchell, Arts Editor
(217) 333-5491; melissa@uiuc.edu

10/1/02

Photo by Bill Wiegand A new study by Kimberly Shinew, UI professor of leisure studies, takes a closer look at some of the 'other' activities of college students including underage drinking, illegal drug use, viewing pornography and gambling.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Like the rest of the population, college students typically engage in a wide range of traditional leisure pursuits – from reading and listening to music to participation in sports. But there’s a whole "other" side to leisure among this population that leisure scholars have only recently begun to examine more closely.

Activities that fall into the "other" category include underage drinking, illegal drug use, viewing pornography and gambling. Since college students are known to devote large blocks of leisure time to these pursuits, Kimberly Shinew thought it was time that leisure-studies researchers took a closer look at motivating factors and patterns involved. Shinew is a professor of leisure studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

"Despite the apparent popularity of these activities, very little is known about students’ consumption of these leisure pursuits," Shinew said. She attributes this to two factors: a tendency among leisure researchers to focus their work on activities with benefits, rather than costs, and the fact that college students are a largely neglected group in the leisure studies literature.

With assistance from graduate student Diana Parry, Shinew set out to learn more. She and Parry started by surveying 740 undergraduate students at Illinois about their experience with what Shinew said is sometimes also called leisure’s "darker side" because many of the activities are considered "on the fringe of social acceptability." Besides simply establishing patterns, the researchers examined behaviors within the context of two potential explanatory theories:
differential association and serious leisure. The first, they describe as "a social learning theory that proposes people learn to participate in illegal or deviant activities from the people with whom they are closest." Serious leisure, on the other hand, is activity engaged in on a regular basis. It is typically associated with a unique ethos or subculture, and the participant perceives some type of benefit from the activity.

Shinew and Parry will present their findings relating to alcohol and drug use at the leisure research symposium of the National Recreation and Park Association Congress, Oct. 16-19 in Tampa, Fla. Those findings, the researchers said, support both differential association and serious leisure as explanations for students’ motives.

Among the results, Shinew was most surprised to find that "men were significantly more likely than women to use drugs and alcohol, Greek-system membership appeared to increase the likelihood of drug use, and religious beliefs did not affect students’ alcohol or drug use." Other findings included:

The majority (83 percent) indicated they drink alcohol; 67 percent started in high school.

Most (76 percent) indicated they do not use drugs; among those who do, marijuana was the drug of choice (98 percent), followed by ecstacy (28 percent).

The majority (85 percent) reported they are usually with friends when they drink or use drugs.

More than 80 percent indicated drinking was a leisure activity for them.