I think you may have a skewed view of what the average person does with their free time (probably because you and your peer group are not typical). Here's a breakdown of what the average unemployed person does with their day (lots of television, almost no education): http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t08C.htm. There's also a big chunk of unspecified leisure/sports, but those activities don't seem to be the type you're hoping for either: http://www.bls.gov/TUS/CHARTS/LEISURE.HTM.
You may very well be right that the relatively small group of people who like to do creative things in their free time would make a big impact, though.
- Low access to anything not in walking distance, or which costs money to get in
- Easy access to distracting pop culture and particularly TV
It's basically unsurprising that a person here and now who's unemployed DOESN'T behave like a person in a society that distributes Basic Income without stigma.
If you want to look at a group which might make a better comparison, look at retirees, or lottery winners.
Fair point, but compare full-time workers to people aged 75+ (who are mostly retired): the latter have 4.5 hours more leisure time per weekday, and 60% of that is spent watching TV. The category most likely to contain creative hobbies ("Other leisure and sports activities, including travel") gets an extra 4 minutes per day. Education time rounds to zero. They do read more, though: about an hour more per day.
Dropping back to ages 65-74 is mostly similar, except they only read half as much.
This is skewed towards people who are unemployed in the current system. It's a bit far-fetched to conclude that this is also what the average person would do. It's more plausible (to me) to assume those people are doing this regardless of the system, and those who would quit paid work because of basic income might do something different.
Also, many types of work are just not possible outside of a company context because you need infrastructure and, well, company. Some people may be willing to do a bit of today's work for free, just for socializing, if they have basic income and if it's socially acceptable to work without pay. Or maybe not. But it's hard to know, from just looking at this data.
You do realize you need money to do what the OP said, an unemployed person with no BI income is not the same person with BI income.
If I have a basic income, I would love to go out and do something productive, take classes to benefit myself to get a better job. I have a few family members who doesn't have a job for a few years and they cannot take any free classes, they all cost money, especially the intensive technical courses.
I would love to go to the arts and stuff but the moment I step out as an unemployed person with no income, it will only incur expenses I can't afford. Rent, Bus fares, food, clothing and so on are vital expenses that I need to save for, I can't do that with no income. I've met people who can barely make any profit after paying their expenses.
You may very well be right that the relatively small group of people who like to do creative things in their free time would make a big impact, though.