Your Day in a Chart: 10 Cool Facts About How Americans Spend Our Time

More

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

Jump to comments

Derek Thompson is a senior editor at The Atlantic, where he oversees business coverage for TheAtlantic.com. More

Thompson has written for Slate, BusinessWeek, and the Daily Beast. He has also appeared as a guest on radio and television networks, including NPR, the BBC, CNBC, and MSNBC.

Get Today's Top Stories in Your Inbox (preview)


Elsewhere on the web

Join the Discussion

After you comment, click Post. If you’re not already logged in you will be asked to log in or register. blog comments powered by Disqus

Video

Miami: The Next Big Start-Up City?

How the city became a center for innovation

Video

Video

A Brief History of Romantic Comedies

From The Atlantic's Chris Orr

Video

Video

Life in 'the New Arctic'

A moving portrait of a fading landscape

Video

Video

The Rise of New York City

A fascinating look at Manhattan in the 1940s

Video

'I Thought It Was Really Funny, but No One Else Did'

A day with New Yorker cartoonist Joe Dator

Video

New Yorkers: The Winemaker

Make your own wine ... in New York City

Video

What Is Methane Hydrate?

"Flaming ice" is a vast natural energy source

Video

NASA's Time-Lapse of the Sun

Now with epic dubstep music

Video

A Video Letter From the Editor

Highlights from the May 2013 issue

Video

Shaken Not Tuned: Cocktail Experiments

Can a tuning fork improve a cocktail?

Video

Video

The Rise of Environmentalism

Tracking 50 years, from the Love Canal disaster to Greenpeace

Video

Is He Cheating? A 1950s Guide

'That little blonde secretary from the office?’

Video

New Yorkers: Vintage Vacuum-Tube Amps

Risking electric shock to restore old amplifiers

Video

The DIY Piano-Bicycle

Everybody needs a hobby

Writers

Up
Down

More in Business

In Focus

2013 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest

Just In