The main thesis of this article is the claim that the demise of the “man of leisure” is taking place before out very eyes — at least in so far as they were defined by Florian Znaniecki and George Herbert Mead, Roger Caillois, Bogusław Sułkowski and other researchers who emphasised the socialising function of fun and its social character. Because of numerous processes — mainly the dominance of entertainment and the search for pleasure at any cost — fun is undergoing a process of atrophy or at least far reaching change and primarily desocialisation. Increasingly we find ourselves alone with music (because of its reproduction by walkmen and discmen), when dancing, in sport and alone in front of the television or the computer monitor. It would appear that this kind of escape from others, avoiding them and at the same time certain difficulties with complete relationships with other people. The concern arises that it will then never be possible to reach those “others”. One of the causes of this effect could be the reduction (or change) in the role of games as a form of socialisation and interaction.
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