Idle Time

Idle time and practices of it are a neglected area in design literature. While work and leisure activities are shaped by laws and political regulations, idle time does not constitute generally accepted practices. However, idle time activities can offer individuals flexibility in their experiences in modern urban life. On the other hand, it also generates times such as waiting moments and traveling time in between everyday activities. In these moments, individuals use their own creativity by the help of “mobile interfaces” to organize their involvement in social relations in unique ways. The purpose of this thesis is to explore idle time activities to develop an understanding about how individuals use idle time to experience their social lives in both physical and virtual environments by using mobile interfaces.

The literature review of this study focuses on foundational concepts on everyday life, psychogeography and symbolic interaction, by taking mobile interfaces and travel into
consideration in public idle times. For this purpose, observations in three different public settings are made. Following that, cultural probe research is conducted to explore what individuals take with them and what they observe in idle time. After cultural probes, I conducted interviews with participants to have a detailed information about what they had filled on the cards.

The thesis concludes with findings and insights on public idle time activities and their interpretations with regard to social, incidental, symbolic and ubiquitous interactions. Briefly, public idle time is framed as active social time in which individuals encounter chance moments and they use their personal creativities to experience pleasant public idle time.

Keywords: idle time, symbolic interaction, mobile interfaces, travel time

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