A retired clinical psychologist says people spend more time on leisure activities that new research shows are the least satisfying.

Founder of Perth Psychologists Patrick Jones says people tend to spend more time on activities that aren’t as beneficial for them because they are simply easier.

“Unfortunately the level of time spent [on the activity] is inverse to the satisfaction,” he says.

“The frequency of people’s behaviours is inversely correlated with what they get out of it.”

On Tuesday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released an article on how Australian generations spend their leisure time. 

The study covered leisure activities including watching TV, movies, streaming services and online videos, digital games, general internet and device use, reading, exercise, sport, and outdoor activities.

The report found more older people watched TV and read while more younger people played digital games and spent time on their devices.

According to Dr Jones, a study found 17 per cent of people were satisfied with watching TV, 25 per cent were satisfied with doing housework and 80 per cent were satisfied with spending time with their children.

The retired clinical psychologist says the activities with higher satisfaction had more “existential meaning” than “passively” watching TV.

Senior lecturer Angela Spence says a barrier to people living a healthier lifestyle is their increased screentime.

“Especially during the pandemic, a lot of people had some very blurred lines as to what constituted work and leisure, particularly when work started to filter into the home space.”

Dr Spence says a way to change a person’s unhealthy habits, especially with exercising, can revolve around understanding someone’s ability to do a task and the challenging environment they’re in.

Dr Jones says scrolling on devices and watching TV are not inherently bad leisure activities but long amounts of time can be detrimental to a person’s well-being.

“Each person has a different threshhold,” he says.

“That’s where self-regulation is important: ‘When am I starting to feel it’s going from good to bad’.”

Dr Jones says there are ways to make leisure time more beneficial to a person’s quality of life but much of the preference is up to the individual.

He says connection is an important part of getting the most out of leisure activities alongside goal achievement, autonomy, mastery, meaning and flow, depending on what the individual needs.

He describes flow as the need for high stimulus types of work to be combined with low stimulus leisure and vice versa.

“The final version of flow is what we call a peak experience where you’ve gone from enjoyable to blissful flight,” he says.

“When you hit that, it’s like cooking with gas.”

Pieter Coetzee from East Victoria Park is a sports science student and has a love for playing golf and surfing with his friends.

“Most of the time I do leisure activities for enjoyment. Golf is a good way to catch up with my friends I haven’t seen in a while and it’s something that’s easy to do,” he says.

The 22-year-old says even when studying takes up a lot of his time, he still finds ways to do his favourite things.

“Socialising is pretty important to me. I like being by myself but I definitely do need that social interaction,” he says.

Bateman resident and retiree Margaret Bryceland agrees with this sentiment.

“It’s important to keep in touch because I need to know [my friends and family] are okay but they also need to know [my husband and I] are fine.”

The report found men spent 30 minutes more on leisure time than women in all generations.

Pieter says he was shocked by the findings while Margaret says she is not so surprised.

“[My husband] certainly gets more leisure time than me, whereas I can’t sit around for too long,” she says.

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