Exploiting the Digitization of Leisure Time: Casual Work and Additional Earnings for Individuals on Crowdworking Platforms

Besides seminal effects and implications on individual’s lives and their social interactions, the increasing digitization also offers individuals new opportunities for casual work and additional earnings. One ‘instrument’ to exploit such opportunities are crowdworking platforms – electronic platforms that act as intermediaries between organizations who offer work and individuals who process it. These platforms include a paradigmatic change – work is not assigned to individuals anymore, they instead choose themselves what kind of work and when they proceed it. Such work is often done to ‘make some money on the side’, using mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets and exploiting idle time such as waiting time respectively leisure time. This paper examines current working opportunities for individuals via such crowdworking platforms. We show which kind of platforms are especially suitable for such individual casual work and derive possible future implications.