Leisure: the importance of being inconsequential

This paper argues that by focusing on ‘little leisures’ (sport, tourism and so on, leisure that is serious or casual, or leisure that produces ‘flow’, or on the specifics of the leisure of selected socio‐demographic groups), leisure studies lose sight of the truly consequential outcomes from leisure. It is argued that explaining the ways in which leisure as a whole has grown, and has not grown, and also the relative freedom of individuals to choose how to use their leisure time and money, becomes possible only when we recognise that performing what in reality are leisure's main societal functions (enhancing well‐being, maintaining consumer demand and expressing identities) are conditional on most of the details of people's leisure choices being relatively inconsequential.