Slovenski etnografski muzej

In this article, the author presents a particular way of spending free time: joining an amateur drama group. On the basis of field work carried out among different amateur drama groups around Slovenia, the following are discussed: why individuals decide to spend their free time on this activity; what they expect to gain from taking part in it; and what this participation means and makes possible.

Taking as examples simply wandering around and the TikTok social network, the article analyses children’s free time in relation to production and consumerism, with which the issue of moral discourse and social control can be connected. In the case of TikTok, the author shows how the borderlines between production and consumerism, as well as between free time and work, are erased. By contrast, wandering around is presented as an activity that until recently was part of the quotidian beyond social control.