Have new digital technologies freed up more time to pursuit leisure activities or have they simply created more work for the average user? Many daily errands that used to take up time in the form of travelling, lining up in queues and communicating with others can now be carried out online (e.g., banking, shopping). Arguably, this should help to free up more time to pursue leisure activities, but has it? More than this, the Internet provides a means by which we can pursue our leisure interests – so much so that, for Rojek (1994), the Internet is a space in which to re‐imagine leisure, a claim supported by the fact that, in 2006, nearly 40% of those surveyed in the US reported leisurely surfing the Internet as part of their daily routine (Fallows, 2006).
This chapter considers some of the above questions and examines how the Internet and related technologies have affected our pursuit of leisure. We begin by discussing what is meant by ‘leisure’ and what motivates our pursuit of it, using selective examples as illustrations. The chapter then moves on to consider the changing nature of telecommunications and its relationship to leisure. We also focus on the impact of the Internet on more traditional forms of telecommunications, paying particular attention to the ‘displacement’ and ‘engagement’ hypotheses. Finally, we discuss Twitter and its use by celebrities, as well as the impact this has on the perceived relationship between those who follow celebrity tweets and the celebrity tweeters themselves.
Before considering how digital technologies might have changed the ways in which we use our leisure time, it is important to operationalize what we mean by leisure. For Bregha (1985), leisure is the most precious expression of our freedom. More specifically, though, it can be divided into two broad areas: serious pursuits and casual pastimes. Leisure, as a serious pursuit, typically involves commitment, effort and perseverance (e.g., joining an amateur dramatics society or being part of a Sunday football league), whereas leisure in the form of a causal pastime is characteristically short‐lived, much more spontaneous and requires little or no training (Stebbins, 2007). According to Nimrod (2010), casual leisure consists of the following types of activity:
One motivation for people engaging in leisure activities (even casually) is the attainment of a specific physical or psychological goal – for example, swimming in order to keep fit, or to look sporty and/or to increase one’s self‐esteem (Manfredo, Driver & Tarrant, 1996). In addition, some people pursue certain leisure activities for their experiential quality – for example, travelling in order to experience foreign cultures and customs (Manfredo et al., 1996). Compatible with each of these is Ryan and Gledon’s (1998) description of four motivations that act as determinants of the level of satisfaction gained from the pursuit of leisure interests. The first is intellectual stimulation (e.g., acquiring new knowledge or discovering new ideas: say, from different cultures). The second is more social: building or strengthening relations. The third is the pursuit of personal challenges: competing to prove you can do it or to establish how good you are at something. Finally, there is the idea that some of us are motivated by the need to avoid or reduce overly stimulating life situations.
Each of the motivational components described above is compatible with the use of new media in our leisure pursuits. As Harris (2005; see also Brown, 2008) notes, the Internet blurs the boundaries between traditionally separate activities, shifting leisure towards virtual spaces and away from what Rowe (2006) calls a ‘leisure landscape once characterized by the physical transport of people’ (p. 324). Consequently, whatever we take leisure to be, or whatever our motivation for pursuing a particular leisure interest, the Internet has afforded many new opportunities for engaging in casual leisure activities, some of which are considered below.
There is limited research on online leisure activities involving families. Social network games are online games played via social network sites (e.g., Facebook). These differ from MMORPGs insofar as they typically involve nonsimultaneous, turn‐taking forms of gameplay (e.g., Farmville, a game in which one is able to create, build and nourish the farm of one’s dreams, and Castleville, in which one can create one’s own fantasy kingdom). Boudreau and Consalvo (2014) were interested in whether this form of casual leisure pursuit was used as a means of keeping in touch with family members and, if so, what type of communication it facilitated. In other words, do family members use the game as a topic of conversation (a shared interest, so to speak) or do they use the game to keep in touch with each other? Through the use of both online questionnaires and interviews (via email and Skype), Boudreau and Consalvo (2014) found that
even though the goal of social network gameplay among family members may not have been initially intended as a way to keep in touch with each other, through the act of play, family members often felt more obligated to continue playing solely for the purpose of supporting each other over other friend dynamics. By drawing on pre‐existing, familial connections, players were able to extend the life of their gameplay. Moreover, topics surrounding gameplay often extended into alternative subjects of communication through both on‐ and offline interactions, broadening the scope of familial interactions. (p. 1128)
This view is compatible with the sentiment expressed on the Playfish website (a UK‐based company that designs social networking games), which in 2009 stated:
We create games that let you play together with real‐world friends and family using the infrastructure built by social networks. This is in some ways a return to the roots of games. You play with the same people you would play cards, board games or go bowling with in the real world. Sharing the game experience with friends makes it more compelling and fun. (cited in Rossi, 2009, p. 2)
The primary aim of social networking games is not, then, the mastering of gaming skills as a means of increasing one’s status within the game, as often the skillset required to play these games is quite low. Instead, game advancement is often achieved through recruitment (Rossi, 2009). As Wei, Yang, Adamic, de Araújo and Rekhi (2010) note, ‘engagement in a social game is closely tied with the ability to recruit friends’ (p. 1).
The literature on online entertainment often focuses on young people; however, there are some interesting studies that examine how older people might use the Internet for entertainment and leisure activities. According to Nimrod (2014), the pursuit of leisure is one of the main functions of the Internet for older users (Loges & Jung, 2001), with older adults (those 65 years of age or over; see Fox, 2004) using the Internet to pursue a number of different leisure activities, such as researching and constructing family trees, compiling photo albums, playing games and engaging in virtual hobbies (Opalinski, 2001). Moreover, seniors’ online communities (forums that explicitly target seniors) provide a unique form of casual leisure for older adults (Nimrod, 2010). Nimrod (2011) concludes that such communities provide older adults with ‘a unique form of casual leisure that involves play, active entertainment and sociable conversation’ (p. 228). In fact, one of the main social appeals of these communities is explained by the fact that the members are of similar ages but from different places, including different countries (Nimrod, 2014), which is made possible by their online status. In addition:
The communities seem to serve as a stage for discussing every possible subject, ranging from very private subjects, such as problematic relationships or fear of death, to public subjects such as global warming or politics. Subjects range from very serious (e.g., employees’ exploitation) to very casual (e.g., jokes), and although some of them are exclusive for seniors (e.g., ageing, retirement rights), many of them are general. With more positive than negative but overall a pretty balanced tone, it seems that the communities also enable expressing a wide range of emotions, ranging from very negative (e.g., sadness, anger, grief) to very positive (e.g., happiness and playfulness). (Nimrod, 2010, p. 389; emphasis in original)
For those members who were less socially active within these online communities – what Nimrod (2010) refers to as ‘lurkers’ – their activity and, it would seem, their enjoyment can best be described as encapsulating a form of passive entertainment, similar to watching television.
In Chapter 2 we looked at how relationships are initiated and developed in online spaces. Couples, of course, can also use digital technologies to maintain contact when they are physically apart (e.g., on work assignments). Internet technology can help those in intimate relationships to feel closer to each other when apart and so more ‘connected’ (Coyne, Stockdale, Busby, Iverson & Grant, 2011). Importantly, however, the same technology, when not being used to help keep couples connected, may be perceived as interfering in their relationship (e.g., during their joint leisure‐time activities). McDaniel and Coyne (2014) use the term ‘technoference’ to describe intrusions or interruptions of this kind. McDaniel and Coyne found that higher instances of perceived technoference were negatively correlated with relational and/or personal well‐being. Specifically, those who perceived more technoference typically reported more frequent conflict over technology use, lower levels of relationship and life satisfaction, and more depressive symptoms.
To understand further the impact the Internet has had on our leisure pursuits, we need to consider more traditional (pre‐Internet) media and the extent to which the Internet has displaced these media in our pursuit of new forms of (or even well‐established) leisure activities. We will begin by examining various forms of telecommunication.
Historically, the different forms of telecommunication divide into two types. The first traces its origins to the telegraph but is best exemplified by the telephone. The formatting of this type of communication allows for interaction – sending and receiving messages targeted at particular individuals – that lacks any centralized control. This type of telecommunication is often thought of as augmenting face‐to‐face communication by enabling, for example, faster communication over greater distances. Telecommunication of the other type, however, is centralized, is not targeted at individuals and is not typically interactive. Characteristic forms of telecommunication formatted in this way are radio, cinema and, more commonly, television.
For Kayany and Yelsma (2000), the two distinct ‘connectivity’ functions of the Internet are (1) online media, whereby computers or other portable devices act as new agents for information similar to the more traditional media devices such as television and radio, and (2) CMC, which enables synchronous communication (which rivals the telephone) as well as asynchronous communication (such as email, blogs or message boards) that acts to replace postal communication. The Internet therefore fits both of the traditional ‘types’ of telecommunication: it augments face‐to‐face (targeted) communication, yet it can also be used for mass broadcasts, which simply require the ‘would‐be’ recipient to tune in (access the web address) to receive the published information (Robinson, Kestnbaum, Neustadtl & Alvarez, 2000). In fact, as a result, the Internet has become a powerful tool enabling instantaneous use of these two broad types of telecommunication around the world.
It has been found that leisure time spent on the Internet does not necessarily replace all the time we might use on other types of entertainment in the physical world (e.g., watching television, listening to the radio). Kayany and Yelsma (2000) argue that modern households are technologically complex environments, insofar as they often consist of multiple television sets, radios, mobile telephones, computers and gaming consoles: what Silverstone (1991) refers to as a domestic sociotechnical system. In support of this claim, Berger (2006) reported that the average American spends 9.2 hours each day using consumer media. Rideout, Foehr and Roberts (2010) similarly report that US children and adolescents spend approximately 53 hours a week (roughly 7.5 hours per day) watching television and films, reading newspapers and magazines, listening to music, playing computer games and using the Internet. In fact, if one were to focus solely on watching television and, in doing so, include accessing television through the Internet and mobile phones, viewing time in the US is on par with the number of hours taken up with full‐time employment (Comstock & Scharrer, 2007). In the UK, Ofcom (2014) announced that 83% of adults go online using any type of device in any location. They also reported that 42% of adults claimed that the media activity they would miss the most would be watching television, followed by using their smartphone (22%) and then going online via their PC/laptop (15%). Within the 16–24‐year age group, however, missing one’s smartphone increased to 47%, whereas watching television dropped to a mere 13%. In fact, 71% of 16‐to‐24‐year‐olds reported watching television online using any device, and, in a survey in the United States reported by Cha (2013), the Internet was considered by adults to be a more essential medium than television. Cha also went on to note how revenue from television advertising declined by 21.2% in the United States between 2008 and 2009, whereas online advertising revenue grew by 8.3% over roughly the same period: an increase purportedly due to the popularity of online videos.
Given that entertainment/leisure and information are the two functions of online media (Kraut et al., 1998), the integration of this technology by family members may well set the parameters of the domestic environment in which the modern family interact, helping to define the characteristics of the particular domestic sociotechnical system. Any changes to this system – brought about, say, by the introduction of some form of new (in this case, online) media – will typically result in a period of integration involving a reorganization of the role/function and relationship to the family (say, in terms of importance) of old media. The integration of one of these online devices will often displace other activities, including face‐to‐face communication. As a consequence, there may occur a time and/or functional displacement effect as the new medium is integrated into the household.
Given that each of us has only a finite amount of time to spend interacting with media devices, how much we can engage with one particular media activity – whether it be a newspaper, the radio, television or the Internet – is limited. If one assumes a zero‐sum relationship between media appliances, then, where a new media activity is introduced, a zero‐sum relationship would predict a deficit in one or more of the other existing activities. A zero‐sum relationship is one in which a gain in the time spent on one device (the television, say) necessitates a deficit in the time taken up with another (the radio), with no change in the overall amount of engagement. To illustrate, where a person still engages with media devices overall for four hours a day, listening to the radio has been displaced wholly or in part by watching television. Where once the individual listened to the radio for four hours a day, she now listens for only one hour; the remaining three hours are taken up with watching the television. In media research, the ‘displacement hypothesis’ (Neuman, 1991) predicts just such a symmetrical (increase–decrease) relationship (Kayany & Yelsma, 2000), in which an increase in the use of one piece of media technology and its associated activity leads to a decrease in the use of another: the former displacing the latter, as the above example of radio and television use illustrates.
Himmelweit, Oppenheim and Vince (1958) were, however, among the first to argue that displacement of old media by new is more likely to occur when the old and new serve the same function. Wishing to be entertained by a drama, for example, can be achieved via the radio or television: each serves the same function in this respect. But, for many, being entertained by a television drama is likely to displace radio drama. Following this, Kayany and Yelsma (2000) have argued more recently that, where new media exist in the same functional niche as older media, each competes with the other to meet the needs of the population. Functional displacement occurs, then, when a new medium better satisfies a need within the population that was once satisfied by older media. Historically, this has been shown to be the case with the onset of television. Time spent watching television displaced time spent engaging with other media, such as radio, the cinema and fiction (McQuail, 1994; Robinson, 1972; Weiss, 1969; Wright, 1986). As a relatively new form of technology, is the Internet displacing time spent on other more traditional media such that these activities are no longer pursued to the same degree (e.g., watching television and films, speaking on the telephone)? Or does the Internet simply provide a more modern means of accessing and therefore continuing to pursue these activities (e.g., watching television and films online, communicating via Skype)?
Neuman (1991) claims that any displacement effect depends on four principles:
Given these four principles, the functional equivalence hypothesis would predict that a medium as popular as the Internet should replace media existing in the same functional niche (Robinson, 2011). This prediction was supported by the findings of surveys carried out by Cole et al. (2001) and Nie and Erbring (2002). In addition, James, Wotring and Forrest (1995) reported a negative correlation between time spent on computer bulletin boards and time spent on other media, such as television, the telephone and books. More recently, Lee, Tan and Hameed (2006) were interested in the relationship between Internet use and three traditional media activities: television viewing, radio listening and newspaper reading. They conjectured that, if one were to apply the four displacement principles above, one could predict that television would be the primary casualty of increased Internet use. This is because the Internet, like television, ‘entertains and informs; but … also allows for interactivity, interpersonal relationship, and asynchronicity. Moreover, television and the Internet often share the same physical space and are in direct competition for attention. If they are not in the same room, they are still within the household’ (Lee et al., 2006, p. 304). Lee et al. also speculated that, compared to television, newspapers should possess greater longevity, owing to, as they put it, their ‘credibility and portability’ (p. 304). These authors also considered radio to be relatively safe from the likelihood of displacement, owing to ‘its compatib[ilty] with many activities, such as driving, cooking, jogging, and even surfing the Internet’ (p. 304) After all, it is not uncommon for a consumer to listen to traditional radio at the same time as using the Internet to read blogs, for example (Cha, 2013).
Lee et al. did, therefore, acknowledge that displacement was not inevitable, as things are more complicated than the hypothesis suggests, even when acknowledging functional equivalence (Anderson, 2008; Gershuny, 2003). In particular, the ‘engagement hypothesis’ predicts a positive relationship between two activities such that one – the Internet (in this instance) – could in fact promote more traditional media activities (Lee & Kuo, 2001; Mutz, Roberts & Van Vuuren, 1993). As they state: ‘after reading an article in the newspaper, we may become curious and decide to find out more by surfing the Internet. As such, time spent on one activity may actually stimulate another’ (Lee et al., 2006, p. 305; see also Robinson, Barth & Kohut, 1997; Robinson et al., 2000; Robinson & Kestnbaum, 1999; Vyas, Singh & Bhabhra, 2007). In contrast to the evidence supporting a displacement effect, other studies have found that, when new, functionally equivalent, media were introduced (CMC, for example), a complementary – or symbiotic or supplemental – relationship between these and print media emerged (Dimmick, Kline & Stafford, 2000; Lin, 2001; Robinson et al., 1997; Schramm, Lyle & Parker, 1961).
In line with their view of the Internet as a time‐management tool, Lee et al. (2006) also claimed that the Internet’s efficiency can create more time to do other things (Nie & Hillygus, 2002), which might include engaging with other media. In fact, Kayany and Yelsma (2000) reported a correlation between the amount of time participants spent online and their rating of the importance of online media for information and entertainment. Lee et al. (2006)’s study likewise found that the use of traditional media (television, radio and newspapers) was in fact positively correlated – meaning that the more one engaged in one of these activities, the more likely one was to engage in one or more of the others – and so did not find support for the Internet displacing any of these media. In fact, for Robinson et al. (2000), the use of a personal computer or the Internet may be more akin to how we use time‐enhancing home appliances such as the telephone than time‐displacing technologies such as the television. In other words, and in keeping with the findings of a meta‐analysis of various US national surveys by Robinson (2011), one might wish to conclude that the Internet has become a powerful medium of communication and entertainment, but not at the expense of decreased use of other (older) media – although, that said, as a demographic, teens and young adults are reportedly migrating from more traditional mass media to SNSs (Li & Bernoff, 2011; Solis, 2011).
Psychologists and health professionals have started to question how healthy it is to multitask in the manner it appears we are, even when that multitasking involves combining leisure activities. This is illustrated in the extract below, in an article in The Guardian titled ‘Why the Modern World Is Bad for Your Brain’:
Our smartphones have become Swiss army knife‐like appliances that include a dictionary, calculator, web browser, email, Game Boy, appointment calendar, voice recorder, guitar tuner, weather forecaster, GPS, texter, tweeter, Facebook updater, and flashlight. They’re more powerful and do more things than the most advanced computer at IBM corporate headquarters 30 years ago. And we use them all the time, part of a 21st‐century mania for cramming everything we do into every single spare moment of downtime. We text while we’re walking across the street, catch up on email while standing in a queue – and while having lunch with friends, we surreptitiously check to see what our other friends are doing. At the kitchen counter, cosy and secure in our domicile, we write our shopping lists on smartphones while we are listening to that wonderfully informative podcast on urban beekeeping.
But there’s a fly in the ointment. Although we think we’re doing several things at once, multitasking, this is a powerful and diabolical illusion. Earl Miller, a neuroscientist at MIT and one of the world experts on divided attention, says that our brains are ‘not wired to multitask well … When people think they’re multitasking, they’re actually just switching from one task to another very rapidly. And every time they do, there’s a cognitive cost in doing so.’ So we’re not actually keeping a lot of balls in the air like an expert juggler; we’re more like a bad amateur plate spinner, frantically switching from one task to another, ignoring the one that is not right in front of us but worried it will come crashing down any minute. Even though we think we’re getting a lot done, ironically, multitasking makes us demonstrably less efficient.
Multitasking has been found to increase the production of the stress hormone cortisol as well as the fight‐or‐flight hormone adrenaline, which can overstimulate your brain and cause mental fog or scrambled thinking. Multitasking creates a dopamine‐addiction feedback loop, effectively rewarding the brain for losing focus and for constantly searching for external stimulation. (Levitin, 2015)
In the final section of this chapter, we consider the role of Twitter (a popular SNS) in disseminating celebrity news to the public (among other things), and its impact as an entertainment device as well as the relationships celebrities and fans have with each other through this medium.
Twitter is a microblogging site that enables people to post – or ‘tweet’ –140‐character texts to a network of others. The site was launched in 2006 and, by the end of 2010, was reported to have a user base in excess of 175 million (Hargittai & Litt, 2011). Messages range from spontaneous quips to reflective musings, from complaints to endorsements, and from the altogether mundane to breaking news (Marwick & boyd, 2010). In addition to their content, tweets can vary in terms of their target audience. Some tweets may be intended for individuals, with everyone else who ‘follows’ the tweet acting as an incidental audience; other tweets, in contrast, are used intentionally to disseminate information to a wider audience and, as such, should be viewed as marketing tools (Stever & Lawson, 2013). Unlike other SNSs, however, in which there is a greater level of reciprocity and sharing of access and information (e.g., Facebook, Myspace), Twitter does not require mutual following. Certainly, there is no technical need for reciprocity, and little in the way of social expectation of it either. Rather, the norm is for one’s tweets to be followed by someone who one does not likewise follow (Greenwood, 2013). As Marwick and boyd (2010) observe, on Twitter, there is a disconnection between followers and followed (e.g., as of May 2016, the singer‐songwriter John Mayer is followed by 785,000 users but follows only 80). Indeed, according to Jin and Phua (2014), the more followers one attracts on Twitter, the greater one’s perceived social influence. For, as they go on to state,
It is no coincidence that to be ‘trending’ (i.e., phrases or topics that are tagged at a greater rate than others) on Twitter at any given point in time is equivalent to having one’s movie become a box‐office hit or one’s hit single rank on the Billboard chart; in other words, Twitter can be utilized as a form of social capital. (Jin & Phua, 2014, p. 182)
In May 2016, at the time of writing, pop music celebrities Katy Perry and Justin Bieber occupied the top two spots on the Twitter top 100 followers list, with nearly 89 million and just over 82 million followers, respectively. In fourth place was US president Barack Obama (over 75 million). The highest ranked sports person was Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo (ranked 14th with over 42 million followers). By comparison, CNN Breaking News, the New York Times, and BBC Breaking News had a much more modest 39 million, 28 million and 22 million followers, respectively (Twitter Counter, 2016).
Given the likelihood of this asymmetrical relationship, research suggests that one major motivation for Twitter use is interest in and perceived access to celebrities. For example, Hargittai and Litt (2011) found that, among the sample of young adults they surveyed, interest in celebrities and entertainment news more generally was a significant predictor of Twitter use. Twitter enables its users to accumulate ‘weak ties’ (Granovetter, 1973) or loose social connections that not only help to disseminate new information and novel ideas among those identified as ‘followers’ but also, in the case of those who ‘follow’ celebrities or other public figures, establish a connection that allows access to social resources that would perhaps be unavailable to the ‘follower’ offline (Jin & Phua, 2014).
From the point of view of the celebrity, then, Twitter provides a good medium for a personable chat with fans without having to grant access to private contact details. For Stever and Lawson (2013), the fact that Twitter allows a personable dialogue without obliging reciprocity is an important and attractive feature of the medium. They state that:
Fans can send the celebrity personal messages without the celebrity needing to grant access to a personal page or site. The celebrity can reply in kind, again without having to join the fan’s page or without forming any kind of formal connection with the fan. If a fan is inappropriate, the celebrity can ‘block’ that fan. A celebrity can read or not read ‘Tweets’ from fans as he or she chooses, and fans don’t know if their messages are being read unless the celebrity replies. (p. 340)
The way celebrities communicate with fans on Twitter may make the fans’ relationship with the celebrity seem more ‘real’, insofar as the celebrity is seen to be reaching out to them. Celebrities may, for example, tweet about their favourite things or things that they dislike, even to the point of providing quite trivial information not typically available or of interest elsewhere. This level of triviality and putative spontaneity may help to give the appearance of ‘being there’ with the celebrity: sharing the moment, as it were (Stever & Lawson, 2013). Some celebrities may also wish to use this medium as a way of expressing their views on particular topics – perhaps reacting to news events around the world – and, in doing so, acting (to a greater or lesser degree) as role models. Greenwood (2013) conjectures that engaging with famous people, even in the asymmetrical way characteristic of Twitter, may bestow on the follower of the celebrity a heighted sense of self‐worth or social value. Such a relationship is characteristic of a ‘parasocial interaction’.
The phenomenon of parasocial interaction (Horton & Wohl, 1956) describes the relationship between media users and celebrity figures (in this case), and is based on the idea that interaction between media users and celebrities (on Twitter, for example) can induce a parasocial relationship – an illusion of intimacy based on a one‐sided and imaginative social rapport with a media figure (Rubin & McHugh, 1987) – whereby the users responds to the celebrity as though in a typical social relationship (Giles, 2002). Moreover, according to Greenwood (2013), Twitter encourages the enactment of what Marwick and boyd (2011) refer to as ‘microcelebrity’ among noncelebrity tweeters. This is believed to stem from the fact that actual celebrities have a social media presence on Twitter. Therefore, perhaps through an association based on the noncelebrity’s use of or presence on the same medium as actual celebrities, these previously unknown individuals can acquire a kind of celebrity status (i.e., microcelebrity). Noncelebrity Twitter users are thus able to gain status and followers by marketing themselves and/or their thoughts as a type of attractive personal brand that is designed to appeal to the diverse population that make up Twitter’s audience.
The Internet has left its mark on our pursuit of leisure, both in terms of enabling more time for leisure, owing to its use as a time‐management tool, and in terms of transforming the way leisure and entertainment can be pursued. To support this general view, we began the chapter by operationalizing leisure: pointing out the various forms leisure can take, broadly divided into serious and casual pastime pursuits. We then discussed the ways in which the Internet, as a means of engaging in leisure, can be of benefit to various groups of people. We looked at, for example, research that shows that online games, played via social media, can help family members to keep in touch, and how one of the main functions of the Internet for older users is the pursuit of leisure activities, often through online forums designed especially for senior members of communities. We also considered the issue of how much time we spend online for leisure and entertainment and how this compares with time spent on entertainment in the physical world. We examined the displacement and the engagement hypotheses and learnt that, rather than one medium for the pursuit of leisure displacing another, many people multitask entertainment by using various media across both the Internet and other spaces. The chapter did question, however, how psychologically healthy it is to combine these tasks. In the final section we discussed how Twitter has been used as a source of entertainment, and how it has also had an impact on the relationship between fans and celebrities – perhaps facilitating what is known as a parasocial relationship on the part of the fan (or Twitter follower). We also considered how Twitter might enable noncelebrities to acquire a certain type of celebrity status.