Friday, August 17, 2012

10 Cool Facts About How Americans Spend Our Time (or…Your Day in a Chart)


People over the age of 75 watch twice as much television as teenagers. On any given day, women are 30 percent more likely to do chores than men. The typical college student spends about an hour sleeping for every 25 minutes he spends studying.
Those are just three of the facts you can harvest from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest American Time Use Survey, which using polling data to illustrate a day in the life for Americans by age, gender, and education. Here are seven charts with seven more observations:
(4) Americans spend about eight-times as many hours working as we do eating and drinking.
Screen Shot 2012-06-25 at 5.10.23 PM.png

(5) 9PM is the only hour at which there are approximately equal shares of employed people working, sleeping, and doing household activities (such as caring for kids or cooking).
Screen Shot 2012-06-25 at 5.24.29 PM.png
(6) Compared to the average American over 15, college students spend 40% more time engaged in leisure/sports and 10% more time sleeping.
Screen Shot 2012-06-25 at 5.11.35 PM.png
(7) The typical 75+-year-old American spends nearly 17 hours sleeping or engaged in leisure/sports — which is 22 percent more than 55-64-year-olds reported in those categories.
Screen Shot 2012-06-25 at 5.08.49 PM.png
(8) Lawn (and garden) care is the only household activity category where a greater share of men report spending their time on an average day.
Screen Shot 2012-06-25 at 5.14.35 PM.png
(9) More than half our leisure time is dedicated to watching television. It would take nine average days of reading to add up to one typical day watching television.
Screen Shot 2012-06-25 at 5.16.01 PM.png
(10) The oldest Americans spend 9X as much time reading than the youngest Americans surveyed by BLS.
Screen Shot 2012-06-25 at 5.17.46 PM.png
Derek Thompson is a senior editor at The Atlantic, where he oversees business coverage for the website.

No comments: