What do students do in their free time and why?

Numerous studies have explored what people do in their free time, but only a few of them have tried to explain why. In Study 1 we therefore aimed to obtain a detailed picture of the ways in which students spend their free time, but also we wanted to investigate their motivation for engaging in a specific activity that they consider to be their favourite. We found that the highest percentage of 585 students, who participated in Study 1, spend most of their free time on social interactions, reading and leisure with family. However, although they did not spend much time on physical activities, participants reported them as their favourite ones. An analysis of variance showed no differences in hedonic motives for free time activities, while eudaimonic motives did differ. In Study 2, we investigated intrinsic motivation for physical exercise on a new sample of 202 students, and found that recreational athletes have significantly higher intrinsic motivation compared to physically less active participants.