Many people regard work as a necessary evil. Their idea of happiness is a perpetual weekend. The irony is that free time is more likely to bring mental distress than joy. Aimless leisure creates grumpy, listless teenagers, and slothful holidays often end in family sulks or squabbles. Ill-spent leisure time, in other words, has become a chronic psychological malaise of the affluent. Think of it as the mental equivalent of couch potato obesity, but more widespread.
Both healthy and unhealthy forms of leisure have appeared throughout history, and exist today. In poorer societies, work and leisure tend to merge and activities are more likely to involve a whole community and have a common goal. As soon as people get rich, however, and have more free time, other kinds of activities sprout up. Spiritual rituals are sometimes extended or competitive sports are made more elaborate and organised, such as the Olympics in ancient Greece. Less constructive examples are the pub and beer-hall cultures of northern Europe in which redundant conversation, watching sports - and alcohol - dampens the impulse towards action.
The human nervous system seems to have developed to respond to external signs of danger and to obstacles to overcome - the sort that structured work provides. But it has not had time to adapt to extended periods without such challenges - like holidays. So it is not surprising that people show more psychological disturbances away from work.
Hongkongers are particularly clueless about how to spend their spare time, a recent government survey showed. The researchers said they were 'lazy', like people in other cities, only more so than in Japan, the US, Canada, Australia or New Zealand. Lack of exercise was a problem. But the list of Hongkongers' preferred leisure activities also spell psychological trouble. Among their favourites were watching TV, shopping and internet surfing - all relatively passive activities that block out what psychologists call 'psychic entropy'. These sorts of activities are chosen - consciously or otherwise - because they are stimulating enough to screen out sources of anxiety from consciousness.
It has long been known that when people have no clear goals, their concentration and spirits sag. Nagging worries, often circular and unsolvable, begin to prey on their mind. A general uneasiness soon turns into more heightened anxiety and an indefinable feeling of disquiet. Without being aware of it, people seek to avoid this mood.
One of the easiest ways to do so is to find an activity which is fully distracting. Some of the most common are obsessive gambling, sexual promiscuity, getting drunk, food binges or taking drugs. These are all alive and well in Hong Kong, of course, but being less socially acceptable, they did not appear in the government survey.