Since adopting the 52hr/week system, people’s pastime is being diversified to a micro level.

With the implementation of 52hr/week system, there has been a great wave of change in the society. We are now living in the era of designing Micro eXperience where office workers design their own pastime. There has been an influx of new words among office workers related to pastime. The joy we experience in our everyday lives has become diverse to a micro level.

From relaxation to leisure, finding pleasure

We no longer see people working on Saturdays.

At the Davos economic forum in 2018, Ma Yun, the founder of Alibaba Group, said, “My grandfather’s generation talked about how busy they were while working 16 hours a day, whereas these days people who work 8 hours a day say they are busy. And the next generation will work only 3~4 days a week, 3~4 hours a day and repeats the same thing”. Korea’s working hours have also followed such a trend and changed much. But the social movement to truly enjoy ‘leisure’ started to take place only about a year ago. Did you know that?

In 2007, Korea kicked started the 5 days per week working system and got rid of working Saturdays. It was to allow office workers to enjoy their pastime, increase consumption and positively stimulate the economy. But it took staggering 12 years until this system was implemented in businesses with less than 20 workers, and it was not sufficient to increase the office workers’ level of satisfaction with their pastime.

Before implementing the 52hr/week system, most people spent their pastime watching TV.

People used to wish to spend their free time traveling and enjoying lifestyle leisure sports, self-development, musical instruments, etc., but actually only could afford to watch movies or TV as they only had weekends to spare. Unlike the intention of improving the quality of life, people found themselves lost in trying to spend their given time or lacked social entertainment. Most felt the financial pressure that would entail such activities.

On the contrary, the 2019 52hr/week system brought on much different kind of changes. According to the mobile survey carried out with 500 office workers by Innocean’s big data analysis organization Data Command Center in 2019, 60% answered that they had changes in their pastime, relaxation, and hobbies, and said that the major reason was the implementation of 52hr/week system. It’s because they had ‘greater leisure to seek new enjoyment and hobby’ during weekdays as well as weekends.

The 52hr/week system and various factors led to a huge increase in SNS buzz after working hours.

Of course, it wasn’t just the 52hr/week system that led to such a result. ‘Acquiring various information through the Internet, mobile devices, social media, etc.’, ‘changes in lifestyle awareness such as small but certain happiness, YOLO, and work and life balance’, ‘changes in recognition of work life regarding work place/job, etc.’, and ‘services brought on by IT technology such as mobile apps and websites’ also were factors that led to changes in pastime.

The change brought on thanks to such various factors was reflected onto the amount of online social buzz. From January to the end of October in 2018, yearly social buzz related to office workers’ pastime was about 190,000 cases, whereas the social buzz created between January and October in 2019 was 270,000 cases, which is a huge increase. Innocean analyzed such social buzz and released a big data analysis report on .

Department store cultural centers now look a lot different.

Cultural center classes are opening up for different types of people from young office workers to men.

‘Weekday 2nd Period’ is a new word popular among office workers. It refers to the office workers’ pastime culture where they enjoy evenings with hobby aside from work after work during weekdays for about 2 hours, which amounts to the 2 period in school. Because of this, the department store cultural center schedule went through a big change. Their target was thought to be children and housewives, but now it’s office workers in 20~30s, with a big increase in male oriented programs.

Young office workers in their 20~30s as well as male attendants have started to knock on the doors of cultural centers; department stores that were pushed aside by E-commerce are now trying out new business strategies to increase sales. They are having time sales after working hours to grab the office workers attention as these people are more active than ever after 6pm on weekdays or strive to make cultural centers more luxurious, transforming them into a complex cultural space.

The nature of gatherings also changed from relationship oriented to taste oriented.

People now enjoy their pastime in various spaces such as clubs and regional classes.

Social buzz keywords related to space had a big change also. Previously academies were mentioned as major venue for leisure and hobby while in 2019 more than 90,000 searches were about one day classes. Social buzz for clubs and meetings also saw a big increase. Social and leisure platform market that introduces various experiences and activities grew as well. Not only experts from many fields but laymen with professional knowledge would suggest a certain activity, and those wishing to purchase and take part in such activity would pay a sum in consideration of the area, date, price, etc. and be a part of it. Such a platform as well as platforms that propose in-depth classes or regional based off-line classes, etc., have also become quite popular.

As platform-based gatherings to share hobbies and tastes have become active, preferred relationships have also changed. The word ‘Gacheuigwan’, referring to light relationship based on common taste that allows easy hanging out without forced familiarity, stemmed out from such a phenomenon. People who get together like this only share their names, but not so much personal information like age or occupation, preferring a horizontal type of relationship. They just share their common interest and nothing else; they don’t want any relationship that goes beyond it.

Besides, there’s also a new word, ‘Nasimbi’, a combined word of ‘ Na (me)’, ‘Simli (psychology)’, and ‘Gasungbi (great value for price)’, referring to those who are willing to consume for psychological satisfaction. References related to experiences have become very diverse and specific. For instance, if you are to take part in art activity, there are travel sketching, coloring, oriental painting, folk art, portrait, all sorts of specific areas. A trend in travel, one of the major pastimes, follows such diversification trend and went beyond mukbang and tourism; it’s expected to transform into a short-distance experience type travel soon.

Micro-designing your leisure time

The purpose of one’s pastime is now not limited to simple self-development; it’s largely categorized into ‘future investment’ where you have a side job or start a business to create profit and ‘pursuit of healing’ where you go for unique, personal pleasure. Hobby-preneurs, who wish to succeed doing what they love, are examples of future investment category. We see more cases of them creating profit and starting their own businesses on Instagram, Facebook, Blogs, Open-malls, etc. Talent sharing market is also growing fast; it’s expected to be of a 4 trillion won market by 2025.

On the other hand, those who pursue healing are people who create their own stories to express themselves with something other than their jobs. Recently, you see celebrities enjoying their hobbies or going for a different career other than their main job on various entertainment programs; such a trend is a case of pursuit of healing. Office workers who wish to enjoy another life after work are also reflected on many advertisements and fashion trends. The ‘bleisure look’ being popular, a word made up of business and leisure, is a big example of this.

Weekly leisure time gained with the 52hr/week system brought on such vast changes in so many areas. People who used to think about ‘what shall I do this weekend?’ now think about ‘what do I do with my free time during weekdays?’ and enjoy various, diversified, personal experiences. Now we are certainly living the early days of Micro eXperience era, where people actively seek out what they want and micro-design time and space.