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The time budgets of a population of youth provide important information about their daily experience and socialization. This study reports data on the time budgets of a sample of 253 urban African American poor to working- and middle-class 5th-8th graders in Chicago. These youth were found to spend less time in school than other postindustrial adolescent populations, but spent no less time doing homework than White suburban U.S. young adolescents. They spent large quantities of time at home and with their families--at rates comparable to rates for young adolescents in a society with collectivist values like India. Unlike with other populations, early adolescence was not associated with major age changes in time allocations. Amount of time in schoolwork did not differ by grade, and amount of time with family did not show the decline with age that has been found for European American suburban adolescents.

This article analyzes the development of initiative as an exemplar of one of many learning experiences that should be studied as part of positive youth development. The capacity for initiative is essential for adults in our society and will become more important in the 21st century, yet adolescents have few opportunities to learn it. Their typical experiences during schoolwork and unstructured leisure do not reflect conditions for learning initiative. The context best suited to the development of initiative appears to be that of structured voluntary activities, such as sports, arts, and participation in organizations, in which youths experience the rare combination of intrinsic motivation in combination with deep attention. An incomplete body of outcome research suggests that such activities are associated with positive development, but the developmental processes involved are only beginning to be understood. One promising approach has recorded language use and has found that adolescents participating in effective organizations acquire a new operating language that appears to correspond to the development of initiative.

The authors review studies on time use of children and adolescents around the world and discuss developmental implications of population differences. Industrialization and schooling are linked to dramatic declines in time spent on household and wage labor. This labor is often unchallenging, sometimes hazardous; developmental benefits often do not increase above a limited number of hours; hence, reduction in these activities opens time for activities that may be more developmentally beneficial. Adolescents in East Asian postindustrial societies spend this freed-up time in schoolwork, a use associated with lower intrinsic motivation but high achievement and economic productivity. Adolescents in North America spend more time in leisure, associated with greater self-direction but of an uncertain relation to development. Age, gender, and socioeconomic differences in activities and with whom time is spent are also considered.

Adolescents spend one-quarter of their waking hours alone, yet the significance of this time is little understood. This study evaluates developmental changes in the experience of solitude between late childhood and early adolescence. Four hundred eighty-three European American fifth through ninth graders provided experience-sampling reports on their companionship and subjective states at random times over a week. The findings show, first, that time alone becomes more voluntary across this age period. Second, time-series analysis shows that for seventh through ninth graders, but not fifth and sixth graders, solitude had a positive after effect on emotional state. Third, adolescents, but not preadolescents, who spent an intermediate amount of their time alone were better adjusted than those who spent little or a great deal of time alone. As a whole, the findings suggest that, while continuing to be a lonely time, in early adolescence solitude comes to have a more constructive role in daily life as a strategic retreat that complements social experience.

This study compared the emotional states experienced by mothers and fathers during daily activities in the domestic and public spheres. Participants carried pagers for 1 week and reported their states when signaled at random times. Patterns for mothers and fathers differed markedly. Mothers reported more positive states in activities away from home, including during work at a job. These states were related to the perceived friendliness of co-workers. Fathers reported more positive states in the home sphere, partly because they spent more of this time n personal and recreational activities and partly because they experienced more choice, even during family work.

This study investigated daily states and time use patterns associated with depression. Four hundred eighty-three 5th to 9th graders reported on their experience when signalled by pagers at random times. Depressed youth reported more negative affect and social emotions, lower psychological investment, lower energy, and greater variability in affect. These differences were weaker for 5th and 6th graders, suggesting that self-reported feeling states are a poor indicator of depression prior to adolescence. No differences were found in the daily activities of depressed youths nor in the amount of time spent alone, but depressed youths experienced other people as less friendly and more often reported wanting to be alone, especially when with their families. They also spent less time in public places and more time in their bedrooms. Finally, depressed boys, but not girls, spent much less time with friends, particularly of the same sex, suggesting that social isolation is more strongly associated with depression for boys.