Abstract
Twenty-five adolescents reported their daily activities and the quality of their experiences for a total of 753 times during a normal week, in response to random beeps transmitted by an electronic paging device. In this sample adolescents were found to spend most of their time either in conversation with peers or in watching television. Negative effects were prevalent in most activities involving socialization into adult roles. Television viewing appears to be an affectless state associated with deviant behavior and antisocial personality traits. The research suggests the importance of a systemic approach which studies persons’ activities and experiences in an ecological context. The experiential sampling method described in this chapter provides a tool for collecting such systemic data.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Associate Professor of Human Development and Associate Master of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. Received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Latest books include Beyond Boredom and Anxiety (1975), dealing with the experience of enjoyment, and The Creative Vision (1976), about problem flnding in art.
Reed Larson: Graduate student in human development at the University of Chicago. Current interests are problems of juvenile delinquency and aging.
Suzanne Prescott: University Professor, College of Human Learning and Development, Governors State University. Received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Research interests include the sociology of science and the role of women.
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Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the many persons who helped collect the data, especially Ms. Patricia Marott and her colleagues in H.D. 362. The research reported herein was partially funded through PHS Grant 5-R01 MH-22883-03.
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Csikszentmihalyi, M., Larson, R., Prescott, S. (2014). The Ecology of Adolescent Activity and Experience. In: Applications of Flow in Human Development and Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9094-9_12
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