Leisure Sociology: How Indians are planning their Lockdown Leisure

Well-known American Author Helen Keller once quoted, “Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” Similarly, this forced lockdown in major countries over the world could be considered as a much-needed break for the Mother Earth and the ever-busy common man.

Thus, to study the Leisure Sociology of common Indians, a few hundreds of them were surveyed recently to know how they are spending their Leisure time. The youth aged between 20-40 years and hailing from tier-1 and tier 2 cities of India constituted the majority of the target audience. The students and Early to mid-Professionals have constituted almost 70 per cent whereas the rest of the audience was aged 40 years and above.

It has been amusing to see that more than 82% of the people surveyed have already decided their plans for the lockdown period. This might be because around 63% of people feel that they are not able to pursue their hobbies in their routine life. Moreover, the survey has shown that more than half of the people surveyed have given priority to spending time with their beloved ones as that is also a luxury during routine life nowadays.

As Kofi Annan once said, ‘Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope’, one can consider, the Indians are moving away from the misery. This can be said because almost 36% of people have planned to read something for these 21 days. Indeed, this would be a wise usage of time, a slightly more number of people i.e. around 39 % have gone one step ahead to acquire certain skills which would help them to grow faster. And for these epistemophiles, Udemyhas come out as the most popular platform for pursuing popular technical courses.

Further, more than half of the people (55%) have planned to relax at home by watching movies and series. Here, surprisingly Youtube has topped the list of platforms preferred by today’s youth for entertainment whereas Prime Videos and Netflix ranked closely as second and third.

It has been 16 years since the last episode of popular sitcom ‘F.R.I.E.N.D.S’ was aired, yet the show has still topped the charts along with other top English series like ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Money Heist’. Besides these epic shows, ‘Asur’ has emerged as the most-watched Indian web series in the last few days.

During this hour of the pandemic, it is important to be strong both physically and psychologically. Thus almost 40% of people have been found practising Yoga and Exercise as well, which is indeed a good practice. Here also, Youtube has been turning out to be the best guide for exercise and meditation.

The survey has shown that, although it’s forced leisure, many amongst us are utilising this time wisely by staying indoors as these practices will not only help us to maintain social distancing but will also result in a positive change in oneself. And this is what new India wants so those who haven’t planned should plan soon and invest their time appropriately.