TIME ALLOCATION AMONG YOUTH IN MALAYSIA

Flow is a psychological state of experience where people are feeling concentrated, enjoyed, involved and in control in the activity that they are interested in. This study focused on the ecological perspective of how young people in Malaysia allocate their time in various activities. Furthermore, state of flow is operationally defined as the indicator of positive experience. Experience sampling method (ESM), a research technique that records on-going patterns of daily live experience had been employed. Four hundred Malaysian university students, age ranged between 20 to 25 years old (M= 21.90, SD= 0.93) had reported their daily activities and the state of flow during a normal week. A total of 1727 responses were obtained from a sample of 400 young people. Participants were found to spend 40.59% of their time in productive-related activities, 28.77% of the activities were maintenance-related activities, followed by 18.99% were spent in passive leisure-related activities and 11.65% of the time were spent in active leisure-related activities. Findings of this study suggest that types of activities have effects on state of flow. Participants reported high state of flow in active leisure and maintenance activities, followed by passive leisure activities and productive activities. Findings contributed to more understanding about young people in Malaysia and provided useful information on how activities can be designed for them in order to increase their state of flow and consequently their positive experience in life. Limitations of the study and recommendations for future studies were also discussed.

Keywords: Flow, Experience Sampling Method, Young People in Malaysia, Activities

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