What Were You Doing at 3:30pm Yesterday?
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.