The «third» and the «fourth» places in the post-pandemic period: popularity and transformation of leisure culture practices.

Abstract

The trend of leisure practices’ transformation as a result of the post-pandemic period is an inevitable process. Therefore, an attempt to observe and analyze changes in certain areas in the social life in this period seems to be an extremely important and timely matter that meets the needs of public consciousness today. Based on theoretical ideas about the «leisure class» of T. Veblen, the «third place» of R. Oldenburg and the «fourth place» of A. Morrison, leisure practices were analyzed during the post-Covid-19 pandemic in Kazakhstan’s Google segment, taking into account user’s queries in the Internet. A comparative analysis of the dynamics of popularity of various leisure practices in Kazakhstan over the past 5 years has also been performed. The results of the research can be used as initial data when planning, opening or running a business in the leisure sector, and may also be of interest to other researchers of leisure culture. According to the results in this paper and comparison of the popularity of «mass» leisure practices or «third places» with «fourth» ones, the former showed unprecedented popularity in comparison with the latter, which led to the thesis about some shortage of «third» places with an atmospheric atmosphere and modern trendy design, and also the lack of development of a qualitative concept for «fourth places», due to their relative unpopularity among the population