Situating bridge: Understanding older adults’ digital leisure practices during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Snellgrove, M. and Punch, S. (2024) Situating bridge: Understanding older adults’ digital leisure practices during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Leisure Research, (doi: 10.1080/00222216.2024.2329158) (Early Online Publication)

Abstract

The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic saw life across the world change dramatically, with national lockdowns and stay-at-home orders sequestering entire populations indoors. Within the world of the mindsport bridge, this meant the closing down of all bridge clubs and an attendant move to digital play. Bridge is a partnership card game, involving four-players and is predominantly played by an older generation (55+). Through 298 diary accounts collected during the first lockdown of 2020, this paper explores how older adults’ in-person bridge play shifted to digital play. We show how volunteer facilitators were crucial in enabling this move online and how learning to play digital bridge provided new technical bridge skills as well as maintaining important social connections. Our paper speaks to ongoing debates about the resilience of older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic and the vital role of leisure during a time of global crisis.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This article was funded by the Bridge: A MindSport for All (BAMSA).
• Status: Early Online Publication
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Snellgrove, Dr Miriam
• Authors: Snellgrove, M., and Punch, S.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Sociology Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences
• Journal Name: Journal of Leisure Research
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• ISSN: 0022-2216
• ISSN (Online): 2159-6417
• Published Online: 02 April 2024
• Copyright Holders: Copyright: © 2024 The Author(s)
• First Published: First published in Journal of Leisure Research 2024
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons licence