What Were You Doing at 3:30pm Yesterday?

Bill Flanigen | August 4, 2009

The New York Times, which has definitely been grokking the interactive display for some time now, posted a fun chart a couple of days ago detailing information from the American Time Use Survey—a minute by minute account of what Americans are doing, which can be broken down along lines of race, age, education, employment status, etc. (Obligatory libertarian disclaimer: This very cool survey was conducted by the Department of Labor using your tax dollars. Enjoy it, because you paid for it.)

Some conclusions: The unemployed sleep later in the day (and get a total of one hour more sleep) than their employed counterparts. Old folks watch a lot of television. The higher the level of education you've already attained, the less likely you are to spend time on more education and the more time you're likely to spend working. People at retirement age don't tend to be travelling at the same times (early morning and mid-afternoon) as younger people who have to commute to and from work. Your first child imposes an average "family care" time cost of about an hour and a half daily, but the marginal time cost of parenthood seems to decrease pretty sharply after your second (and subsequent) children. 

Alright, so these aren't exactly earth-shattering demographic revelations. Still, it's interesting to see them compiled in a visually appealing format that makes possible some limited comparisons of different demographic groups.

Link via Neatorama.

Comments

hmm|8.4.09 @ 4:32PM|#

What Were You Doing at 3:30pm Yesterday?

Furiously masturbating.

You asked.




*now to actually read the article.

hmm|8.4.09 @ 4:34PM|#

Does that fall under leisure or personal care?

Cal Lipigian|8.4.09 @ 4:42PM|#

At 4:30PM, only 6% of seniors are eating dinner? I call bullshit.

Rich|8.4.09 @ 4:59PM|#

At 4:30PM, only 6% of seniors are eating dinner? I call bullshit.

No, it's true. The rest have gone to bed for the evening.

|8.4.09 @ 5:07PM|#

I love the "other leisure" category. Way to avoid the obvious questions about fucking, NYT.

|8.4.09 @ 6:00PM|#

Personal Care:

This category includes activities like showering and grooming. (It also includes an average of 54 seconds spent on ''personal or private activities,'' like having sex.)

What the fuck? If I'm reading this right, it leads me to believe that I have a better sex life than anyone in America. (I also do a lot more showering/grooming. Coincidence, America? Hmm?)

Mick Jagger|8.4.09 @ 6:27PM|#

I'm suing for copyright infringement on the shape of that graph.

Joe M|8.4.09 @ 6:41PM|#

It's too bad you can't ctrl-click multiple groups to get more narrowed statistics.

roo|8.4.09 @ 6:56PM|#

3 hours and 25 minutes of the average american's day is spent working. And we wonder why the economy is sputtering.

No Name Guy|8.4.09 @ 7:22PM|#

Cool graph.......

|8.4.09 @ 7:37PM|#

This is great! Thanks, Bill.

|8.4.09 @ 7:39PM|#

The orange band is labelled "Work and Goofing around on Hit 'N Run", right?

Gawd, I hope they don't break out that category...

Mike Laursen|8.5.09 @ 12:19AM|#

At 4:30PM, only 6% of seniors are eating dinner? I call bullshit.

It shows people with kids getting nearly as much sleep as people without kids. I call bullshit.

Syd Henderson|8.5.09 @ 1:59AM|#

roo | August 4, 2009, 6:56pm | #
3 hours and 25 minutes of the average american's day is spent working. And we wonder why the economy is sputtering.

The figures include high school and college students, the retired, housewives (who apparently don't work) and house husbands. And the unemployed, of course.

Only one percent of the country is on a computer at any given time? I assume that doesn't include office workers, but it doesn't seem exactly right.

Turnkey|8.5.09 @ 3:01AM|#

The kids thing is interesting, more along the lines of what I see than what most people with kids say.

I.e. People I know with children watch a ton of TV and only nominally keep and eye out for the kids.