One out of 2 Seoul citizens does not have enough time to enjoy hobbies and leisure activities due mainly to financial pressures and excessive workloads, a survey showed Tuesday.

According to the city-run Seoul Institute, about 50 percent of those surveyed said they do not have enough time for hobbies and leisure activities, with 12.4 percent of them saying they had “far from enough” spare time.
 

The survey was conducted online on 1,000 Seoulites aged 19 or over in August.

If they had enough spare time, about 35 percent said they would like to work out or have hobbies, while over 16 percent said they wanted to sleep. The other 16 percent said they would prefer to study or learn something new.

As for the main reason for the forgone leisure time, more than 42 percent picked financial pressures. That was followed by excessive working hours and housework with 32 percent. The rest said they psychologically could not afford to invest in hobbies or did not know enough about such activities.

Seoul citizens have four hours and 24 minutes a day in spare time, according to the survey.

Those in their 60s had the most time to spare with about 6.5 hours, followed by those in their 50s with 4.5 hours. Those in their 30s had the least spare time with just three hours and 19 minutes daily.

Watching TV was the most common activity that all generations preferred in their spare time, as people spent nearly two hours a day doing so on average. They used less than half an hour on social life and 14 minutes on surfing the Internet.

Those in their 30s spent the largest portion of time reading books at 11 minutes a day while other generations spent 10 minutes or less.

Other than watching TV, senior citizens preferred to take walks or rest, while those in their 20s and 30s spent time searching for information on the Internet or playing computer and mobile games.

By Lee Hyun-jeong (rene@heraldcorp.com)