What children do with their time relates to their well-being in numerous ways. To understand this, we need to appreciate that wellbeing is a multi-dimensional concept incorporating both objective and subjective components. Objective well-being can be assessed with reference to indicators relating to children's health and education. For example, the proportion of children who are overweight (including obese) and the proportion of children who would like to pursue further or higher education are two headline indicators which the Office for National Statistics (ONS) uses to measure child well-being (relating to health and education respectively) (ONS, 2014a). Aspects of how children spend their time also relate closely to objective indicators of child well-being. For example, children's time in physical activities, and in activities linked to education and culture, are positively associated with objective indicators of well-being (tied respectively to health and education) (ONS, 2014a). Subjective well-being refers broadly to psychological or emotional states or feelings. There are two major components of subjective well-being: ‘affective’ and ‘cognitive’ (The Children's Society, 2013). The affective component is measured typically by asking children how happy they are; questions about satisfaction with life are used to capture the cognitive component. In short, the first relates to how children feel about their lives and the second requires a (subjective) cognitive appraisal or evaluation of life.

This chapter focuses on the affective component of subjective wellbeing, specifically in connection with how children feel about how they spend their time. How happy children feel about their time use overall has been a core element in efforts to gauge children's subjective well-being. Rees et al (2010) ask children how happy they are across ten life domains, including family, friends, school, appearance and time use. The subjective dimensions of time use – how children feel about how they spend time – are therefore central to evaluations of children's subjective well-being. Although it is helpful to single out overall time use as a distinct area of life, this is comprised of many different activities and there may be considerable variation in children's subjective experience of time in different activities.