B3-2 Not lonely, just alone': The implications of COVID-19 for young Norwegians' leisure lives

This study provides another voice for the health-promoting potential of sports participation, while shedding light on the potential in working with youngsters who engage in passive leisure.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic forced organised sports (outside elite sports) and other leisure providers to close for an extended period. This provided an interesting backdrop for a study on Norwegian youngsters’ leisure given the relatively high participation rates reported by Norwegian youngsters in leisure activities, such as sports, where the peak age for sports participation is 16–19 years.

Methods: During spring 2021, 41 semi-structured individual interviews with youngsters aged 17–18 years (second year upper secondary school) were held digitally over Zoom/Teams. Questions were asked about their experiences of lockdown(s) and the period following lockdown(s) as well as their leisure participation during this period. In addition, thoughts and reflections about their leisure future were explored. Questions were asked about the extent to which the lockdown(s) and the period following lockdown(s) affected their leisure and schooling lives, how they experienced this period. and how they prioritised their leisure. Data were ana- lysed using thematic analysis.
Results: Being locked out from sports and school had adverse effect on the youngsters’ everyday structure, which gave rise to a decline in physical activity. However, over time, the youngsters responded to lockdown and restrictions by adapting their participation to keep them- selves physically active, albeit at lower rates/frequencies than before. Interestingly, many of the informants talked about ‘thriving in their own company’, experiencing the pandemic as a positive and welcome relief from everyday hurriedness related to sports and other social commitments. Those who did not do much or any sports before the pandemic on the other hand seemed to experience the lockdown as isolating to a larger degree. However, the analysis suggests that (internet) gaming provided some protection against feelings of isolation during lockdown.

Conclusions: Based on the findings from this study, it seems that our understanding of the effects of lock- down on Norwegian youngsters may need to be more nuanced than earlier reports of the harmful mental and physical impacts of the pandemic among young people. Among other things, the findings might be taken to suggest that the deep-seated sporting habituses apparent among many of the youngsters may be sufficient to survive periods of lockdown. In addition, their established spor¬ting networks appear to have facilitated social bonds that work to protect youngsters from feeling socially isolated when kept away from in-person contact with friends. We observe here interweaving processes between sports and contemporary ‘digital youth’ in which the way in which they keep in touch has meant that their lives have been more resilient to the isolating effects of COVID.