{"id":7452,"date":"2026-04-16T11:31:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T02:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/?p=7452"},"modified":"2026-04-16T11:31:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T02:01:06","slug":"the-hobby-starter-kit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/2026\/04\/16\/the-hobby-starter-kit\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hobby Starter Kit"},"content":{"rendered":"<hr \/>\n<p>Over at The Conversation, they are <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/topics\/the-hobby-starter-kit-186342\">bundling together articles on &#8216;hobbies&#8217;<\/a>. If you are a hobby person, this is validation. If you are not a hobby person, this might be your kick start.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve not discovered <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/\">The Conversation<\/a>, let this be an important moment in your life.<\/p>\n<p>In academia we have peer-reviewed journals at the top of the content quality pile.<\/p>\n<p>And within your own profession, the academic literature is a great place to go to learn more about a topic. For example, I am a psychologist. If I want to learn about an important psychological concept, the place I will (most likely) get the highest quality content is academic psychological journals.<\/p>\n<p>But what about ideas from outside of your expertise area? Or if you want to learn something, but you aren&#8217;t in the headspace for digesting a complex research article?<\/p>\n<p>That is where The Conversation come in.<\/p>\n<p>Academics, with the help of journalistic editors, take knowledge from academia and present it easy-to-read articles, free and updated weekly.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"How we work at The Conversation\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zJ0iDbxNsTs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It is a news site, but where you can be more confident that the news is coming from people that know the topic well, because it is their academic expertise area.<\/p>\n<p>In the content quality hierarchy (<a href=\"https:\/\/libraryguides.csuniv.edu\/tutorial_evaluating\/hierarchy_of_credibility\">such things do exist<\/a>), this would sit below peer reviewed research, but above just about anything else.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"899\" data-end=\"1170\">That matters in a world where the sheer volume of information can make it hard to judge what\u2019s reliable.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1172\" data-end=\"1281\">Is that TikTok influencer actually knowledgeable, or just confidently incorrect? Sometimes it\u2019s hard to tell.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1283\" data-end=\"1431\">In an information-overloaded environment, knowing your sources matters. And <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">The Conversation<\/span><\/span> is a good one to have in your mix.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>That was a long and convoluted intro to what I actually wanted to share<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve noticed over the past couple of weeks, The Conversation has been featuring articles on hobbies.<\/p>\n<p>And they&#8217;ve actually been collecting up the relevant hobby articles into a bundle they are calling the <em>Hobby Starter Kit<\/em>. At the time of writing this they&#8217;ve explored hobbies and mental health, adult play, bizarre leisure activities, starting a hobby, hobbies and distraction and how to protect hobbies in a productivity obsessed world.<\/p>\n<p>Although my primary and high school report cards used to reliably say &#8216;Gareth should engage in more extra-curricular activities&#8217; I am actually very pro hobby.<\/p>\n<p>Nowadays I&#8217;d count art and gardening and (when I have enough money) computer building amongst my hobby areas.\u00a0I also have some, what I&#8217;d label &#8216;quasi-hobbies&#8217; because they are psychology (i.e. work) related but not things I have to do, but find interesting to do.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, I think my primary and high school teachers would be proud of just how many life projects I have, although they might note I&#8217;ve gone too far in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n<p>Unnecessary and excessive sharing about myself aside, hobbies and leisure are a known promoter of good mental health. I have leisure as its own distinct category in my presentations on mental health self-care.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-7454\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/71\/2026\/04\/leisure-focus.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/71\/2026\/04\/leisure-focus.jpg 1920w, https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/71\/2026\/04\/leisure-focus-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/71\/2026\/04\/leisure-focus-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/71\/2026\/04\/leisure-focus-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/71\/2026\/04\/leisure-focus-1536x864.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I think it is important to validate hobbies and leisure as legitimate pathways to wellbeing, especially in a culture that prizes work and productivity.<\/p>\n<p>A student even said to me the other day that they hadn&#8217;t been doing their hobbies, even though they know they are beneficial to their mental health, because they felt guilty about not being &#8216;productive&#8217;. It made me sad that they were denying themselves something that brought happiness into their life, because they felt<\/p>\n<p>So if you are after a bit of validation about your hobbies or maybe interested in adding one to your life, bookmark the <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/topics\/the-hobby-starter-kit-186342\">Conversation&#8217;s Hobby Starter Kit<\/a>, have a read of some of the articles, and set aside even just a little block of time for some hobby action. I did mine already today. I did some art before leaving the house this morning.<\/p>\n<p>Oh yeah, and while you are on The Conversation website, consider creating an account, so you have this important resource as part of your<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/2023\/10\/03\/develop-your-own-wellbeing-information-diet\/\"> information diet<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-7455\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/71\/2026\/04\/hobbies.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/71\/2026\/04\/hobbies.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/71\/2026\/04\/hobbies-300x75.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/71\/2026\/04\/hobbies-1024x256.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/71\/2026\/04\/hobbies-768x192.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over at The Conversation, they are bundling together articles on &#8216;hobbies&#8217;. If you are a hobby person, this is validation. If you are not a hobby [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":492,"featured_media":7456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,21054,108,16263,4402,71,19082],"tags":[21857,20088,21858,18215,15330,21854,21853,21859,21855,19944,18818,21856,3448,8369,21860,19063,11982,18935,12811,2800],"class_list":["post-7452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-skills","category-creativity","category-health-information","category-learning","category-news","category-recommended-reading","category-self-care","tag-academic-resources","tag-betteru","tag-evidence-based-information","tag-flinders-university","tag-healthy-habits","tag-hobbies-and-mental-health","tag-hobby-starter-kit","tag-information-literacy","tag-leisure-activities","tag-mental-health-tips","tag-personal-development","tag-productivity-vs-wellbeing","tag-self-care","tag-stress-management","tag-student-lifestyle","tag-student-wellbeing","tag-the-conversation","tag-university-life","tag-wellbeing-activities","tag-work-life-balance"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/492"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}