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tent with findings from James Oppen- heim's 1984 study which showed that college students who were less social- ly competent were more bored with their leisure. None of these studies can definitive- ly state that boredom in free time causes substance abuse, smoking, poor health, or loneliness. Nor is there a very complete understanding of the factors that cause boredom. But the accumulation of evidence leads to the initial conclusion that boredom du free time 'is consistently related � negative behaviors and outcomes, and that it occurs, at least in part, because people are not aware of the potential Brent in meaningful leisure activi- ties. The challenge to leisure service professionals is to address this issue at both the individual and societal lev- els. Educational efforts focused on preventing boredom will have to take into account that bored individuals are the product of widespread failure to prepare us to use free time meaning- fully. Beyond Traditional Delivery One irony faced by professionals is that organized recreation serves a rel- atively small portion of the public; most people engage in "self -pro- grammed" leisure activities. Even more perplexing is the notion that people who find leisure time boring are probably least likely to seek out organized recreation. So how can we reach these people? Although public and private recreation agencies can apply research about boredom to alter their programs and philosophies, the broader answer will require going beyond traditional service delivery. For example, schools are an obvi- ous setting for capturing the attention of young people. I have often won- dered why parks and recreation agen- cies have not established better rela- tionships with educators and created more effective educational programs in schools. Why wouldn't recreation 3 4 * P& R M A R C H 1 9 9 4 professionals volunteer to speak to students, not just about things like signing up for athletic leagues, but about the nature of free time and its productive uses? Why couldn't we use recreation professionals as leisure consultants in the schools? For that matter, why have we underutilized schools as undergraduate and gradu- ate practicum sites? And why is it that leisure studies professors haven't set up a dialogue with the faculty who train teachers and school counselors? This last point is even more puzzling since many recreation curricula are housed in colleges of education. Different Problems Reaching adults who are beyond their formal schooling presents differ- ent problems. Again, it is difficult to understand why we have failed to con- sciously utilize the news media for leisure education purposes. Newspa- per public interest stories, local talk shows and local access cable stations are all obvious choices for planting stories that address the meaningful use of leisure time. Local and state public broadcasting and community radio stations typically produce and distribute high quality programming on an incredibly diverse array of top- ics. I suspect that utilizing these media sources simply requires an informed professional with a willing- ness to be persuasive and persistent. The question of how to address boredom in the general population has no single, or simple, answer. But given the present state of relative inac- tion, there seems to be no where to go but up. Perhaps the more difficult question is, "Why have we done so lit- tle to educate for leisure?" At a presen- tation in San Jose, Mark Searle of the University of Manitoba said jokingly that he was waiting to see a study that didn't have implications for leisure education. We certainly have no short- age of ideas. What we seem to lack are models for effectively implement- ing them. ■ References Caldwell, LL, & Weissinger, E. (in press, Factors influencing free time boredom it a sample of persons with spinal cord injuries. Therapeutic Recreation Journa Deci, E. L, & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum. Iso -Ahola, S.E., & Crowley, E.D. (1991). Adolescent substance abuse and leisure boredom. Journal of Leisure Research, 23,260-271. Iso -Ahola, S.E., & Weissinger, E. (1987). 1 Leisure and boredom. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 5, 356-364. Lee, Y. (1990). Leisure boredom: Possible cause of adolescent drug abuse. Korea( Journal of Leisure and Recreation, 7, 76-90. Oppenheim, J.S. (1984). Perceived sock competence, boredom and capacity for self -entertainment Unpublished Master thesis, University of Maryland, College Park. Ragheb, M.G. (1993, October). A multiph regression analysis of the contribution of campus recreation, leisure satisfac- tion, loneliness and a set of satisfaction to students. Paper presented at the SPF Leisure Research Symposium, San Jos( CA. Smith, E.A., & Caldwell, LL (1989). The perceived quality of leisure experience: among smoking and nonsmoking adole,- cents. Journal of Early Adolescence, 9, 153-162. Weissinger, E., Caldwell, LL, & Smith, E.A. (1993, October). Effects of differing levels of leisure boredom on self-report of mental and physical health among tr, ditionally aged college students. Paper presented atthe SPRE Leisure Researc Symposium, San Jose, CA. Weissinger, E., Caldwell, LL., & Bandar D.L. (1992). Relation between intrinsic motivation and boredom in leisure time Leisure Sciences, 14,317-325.