IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/itsdav/qt0nk475qx.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Taxonomy of Leisure Activities: The Role of ICT

Author

Listed:
  • Mokhtarian, Patricia L
  • Salomon, Ilan
  • Handy, Susan L

Abstract

A number of studies have examined the adoption of information and communication technology (ICT) and its impacts on personal travel, both at a general level and in the context of a particular kind of activity. While it is not surprising that initial attention has focused on the effects of ICT on travel for mandatory and maintenance activities, discretionary or leisure activities have received relatively little attention from this perspective. This report offers a conceptual exploration of the potential impacts of ICTs on leisure activities and the associated travel. We start by discussing some ideas about what leisure is and is not. We point out that one reason for the nebulous nature of the concept of leisure is that the boundaries between leisure, mandatory, and maintenance activities are permeable, for three reasons: the multi-attribute nature of a single activity, the sequential interleaving of activity fragments, and the simultaneous conduct of multiple activities (multitasking). With respect to the relationship of ICT to leisure activities, we discuss four kinds of ways by which ICT can affect leisure activities and travel: the replacement of a traditional activity with an ICT counterpart, the generation of new ICT activities (that displace other activities), the ICT-enabled reallocation of time to other activities, and ICT as a facilitator of leisure activities. We then present 13 dimensions of leisure activities that are especially relevant to the issue of ICT impacts: location (in)dependence, mobility-based v. stationary, time (in)dependence, planning horizon, temporal structure and fragmentation, possible multitasking, solitary v. social activity, active v. passive participation, physical v. mental, equipment/media (in)dependence, informal v. formal arrangements required, motivation, and cost. The primary impact of ICT on leisure is to expand an individual's choice set; however whether or not the new options will be chosen depends on the attributes of the activity (such as the 13 identified dimensions), as well as those of the individual. The potential transportation impacts when the new options are chosen are ambiguous. A number of directions for further research are identified.

Suggested Citation

  • Mokhtarian, Patricia L & Salomon, Ilan & Handy, Susan L, 2004. "A Taxonomy of Leisure Activities: The Role of ICT," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt0nk475qx, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt0nk475qx
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/0nk475qx.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Erik Brynjolfsson & Michael D. Smith, 2000. "Frictionless Commerce? A Comparison of Internet and Conventional Retailers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(4), pages 563-585, April.
    2. Philippe Delespaul & Harry Reis & Marten DeVries, 2004. "Ecological and Motivational Determinants of Activation: Studying Compared to Sports and Watching TV," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 67(1), pages 129-143, June.
    3. Kenneth Button & Rico Maggi, "undated". "Videoconferencing and its Implications for Transport: An Anglo-Swiss Perspective," Research Papers 93/3, CENTRE FOR RESEARCH IN EUROPEAN ECONOMICS AND FINANCE (CREEF).
    4. Donald G. Janelle & David C. Hodge, 2000. "Information, Place, Cyberspace, and Accessibility," Advances in Spatial Science, in: Donald G. Janelle & David C. Hodge (ed.), Information, Place, and Cyberspace, chapter 1, pages 3-11, Springer.
    5. Helen Couclelis, 2000. "From Sustainable Transportation to Sustainable Accessibility: Can We Avoid a New Tragedy of the Commons?," Advances in Spatial Science, in: Donald G. Janelle & David C. Hodge (ed.), Information, Place, and Cyberspace, chapter 20, pages 341-356, Springer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dalia Streimikiene & Biruta Svagzdiene & Edmundas Jasinskas & Arturas Simanavicius, 2021. "Sustainable tourism development and competitiveness: The systematic literature review," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1), pages 259-271, January.
    2. Kong, Hui & Moody, Joanna & Zhao, Jinhua, 2020. "ICT’s impacts on ride-hailing use and individual travel," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 1-15.
    3. Patricia Mokhtarian & Ilan Salomon & Susan Handy, 2006. "The Impacts of Ict on leisure Activities and Travel: A Conceptual Exploration," Transportation, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 263-289, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Patricia Mokhtarian, 2004. "A conceptual analysis of the transportation impacts of B2C e-commerce," Transportation, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 257-284, August.
    2. Lee-Gosselin, Martin & Miranda-Moreno, Luis F., 2009. "What is different about urban activities of those with access to ICTs? Some early evidence from Québec, Canada," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 104-114.
    3. Mokhtarian, Patricia L., 2020. "Wenn die Telekommunikation den Verkehr so gut ersetzen kann, warum gibt es dann immer mehr Staus?," Forschungsberichte der ARL: Aufsätze, in: Reutter, Ulrike & Holz-Rau, Christian & Albrecht, Janna & Hülz, Martina (ed.), Wechselwirkungen von Mobilität und Raumentwicklung im Kontext gesellschaftlichen Wandels, volume 14, pages 167-195, ARL – Akademie für Raumentwicklung in der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft.
    4. Bayarma Alexander & Christa Hubers & Tim Schwanen & Martin Dijst & Dick Ettema, 2011. "Anything, Anywhere, Anytime? Developing Indicators to Assess the Spatial and Temporal Fragmentation of Activities," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 38(4), pages 678-705, August.
    5. Calderwood, Eric & Freathy, Paul, 2014. "Consumer mobility in the Scottish isles: The impact of internet adoption upon retail travel patterns," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 192-203.
    6. Alexander, Bayarma & Ettema, Dick & Dijst, Martin, 2010. "Fragmentation of work activity as a multi-dimensional construct and its association with ICT, employment and sociodemographic characteristics," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 55-64.
    7. Helen Couclelis, 2009. "Rethinking Time Geography in the Information Age," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(7), pages 1556-1575, July.
    8. Ben-Elia, Eran & Alexander, Bayarma & Hubers, Christa & Ettema, Dick, 2014. "Activity fragmentation, ICT and travel: An exploratory Path Analysis of spatiotemporal interrelationships," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 56-74.
    9. Maltese, Ila & Le Pira, Michela & Marcucci, Edoardo & Gatta, Valerio & Evangelinos, Christos, 2021. "Grocery or @grocery: A stated preference investigation in Rome and Milan," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    10. Robert C. Kloosterman & Sako Musterd, 2001. "The Polycentric Urban Region: Towards a Research Agenda," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 38(4), pages 623-633, April.
    11. Brendan Burchell & Darja Reuschke & Mary Zhang, 2021. "Spatial and temporal segmenting of urban workplaces: The gendering of multi-locational working," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(11), pages 2207-2232, August.
    12. de Goei, B. & Burger, M.J. & van Oort, F.G. & Kitson, M., 2009. "Functional Polycentrism and Urban Network Development in the Greater South East UK: Evidence from Commuting Patterns, 1981-2001," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2009-038-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    13. Shaw, Shih-Lung & Yu, Hongbo, 2009. "A GIS-based time-geographic approach of studying individual activities and interactions in a hybrid physical–virtual space," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 141-149.
    14. Line, Tilly & Jain, Juliet & Lyons, Glenn, 2011. "The role of ICTs in everyday mobile lives," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 1490-1499.
    15. Mattias Gripsrud & Randi Hjorthol, 2012. "Working on the train: from ‘dead time’ to productive and vital time," Transportation, Springer, vol. 39(5), pages 941-956, September.
    16. Bayarma Alexander & Martin Dijst, 2012. "Professional workers @ work: importance of work activities for electronic and face-to-face communications in the Netherlands," Transportation, Springer, vol. 39(5), pages 919-940, September.
    17. Hjorthol, Randi & Gripsrud, Mattias, 2009. "Home as a communication hub: the domestic use of ICT," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 115-123.
    18. Miller, Harvey J., 2013. "Beyond sharing: cultivating cooperative transportation systems through geographic information science," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 296-308.
    19. Sylvie Occelli & Luca Staricco, 2009. "Learning about Urban Mobility: Experiences with a Multiagent-System Model," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 36(5), pages 772-786, October.
    20. Valerio Gatta & Edoardo Marcucci & Ila Maltese & Gabriele Iannaccone & Jiarui Fan, 2021. "E-Groceries: A Channel Choice Analysis in Shanghai," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-18, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Engineering; UCD-ITS-RR-04-44;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt0nk475qx. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/itucdus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.