Drinking: An Ignored Leisure Activity

The exclusion of drinking from activities included in standard surveys on the use of time is considered. Drinking may play an important role among leisure-time activities. Two Finnish data sets are compared, one being a diary study on the use of time, and the other an interview survey of drinking habits. The results obtained by these different methods were roughly equivalent. The comparison raises the question of the validity of data in studies on the use of time. The problematic nature of drinking as an activity is discussed, and data on time-related aspects of drinking in various contexts are presented to support the view that the internal cultural meanings of activities and their social contexts should be taken into account, particularly in studies on the changing patterns of the use of time.