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What Americans Actually Do All Day Long
- neilkelty 14y agoWhere's exercise contained? I don't mean that I'm surprised it barely registers, but what category is it under?
- nhebb 14y ago"Playing sports" - under the Leisure details - is probably the catchall category for exercise.
- JoeAltmaier 14y agoAnd sex? Under Leisure? Other? Talking to people on the telephone?
- ChuckMcM 14y agoClearly they take a weekly total and divide by 7. 7:48 of 'religious' time is just about 55minutes a week so I'm guessing an hour of church a week. Would be interesting to do the multi-variable analysis across different factors like education, location, etc.
- majormajor 14y agoIf these numbers were the result of dividing by 7, that would put the working/commuting number at 64 hours a week instead of 46. 40 minutes of non-weekend volunteering/religious activity sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I haven't seen the church part as much on the coast, but back in Texas there were a lot of people I knew who went to at least an hour's worth of in-week religious service.
- slurgfest 14y agoAn hour is not very much, in some churches and some places outside of the US church can go on most of the day.
- ChuckMcM 14y agoI agree, with your observations, in California people might work 50 hrs a week and commute 15 hrs (90 minutes each way) Which is why it would be interesting to compare Texas vs Arkansas vs California vs Montana vs college degree vs no degree vs rich vs poor etc etc.
- raygunomical 14y agoBut the article says: > Here's how the average American with a full-time job spends a typical workday It mentions "workday" specifically, so it probably doesn't include weekends.
- Tyrannosaurs 14y agoIn which case 50 minutes a week becomes 10 minutes a day which doesn't strike me as unreasonable - a bit of prayer, bible reading, maybe a weekly group of some sort and you could see how they got to that number. Plus I suspect this is one of the things people will over estimate (in the same way that they'll probably underestimate watching TV).
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- samstave 14y agoGet up Check email on phone / check HN / check reddit Shower/get baby ready check email / check HN / check reddit prep backpack, get things needed for work bike to bart (music) check HN / check reddit (music) arrive at embarcaderro go to starbucks - order "large hot water" {free} - insert teabag supplied by office (restock once a week) [mighty leaf green tea tropical] walk to client site work / email / work / HN / reddit / meetings / work / email / txt / call wife / eat / HN / reddit / etc wrap up walk to bart email / HN / reddit arrive to home station bike home family time dinner family time work / HN / reddit family time email / HN / reddit sleep rinse/repeat
- lukeholder 14y agothis is me. HN /Reddit. i feel sad.
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- textminer 14y ago"The ride bike to BART then get off at Embarcadero" is what killed me. Here I thought I was a special East Bay flower.
- Domenic_S 14y agoI wish I could ride bart. East bay --> san jose is not a very fun commute. Just what, 6 more years before the south bay bart lines are done?
- jff 14y agoThey've been promising the Livermore line forever. I think it'll probably just be vapor forever, Livermore-ites may have just decided they're ok not having a direct line from SF, Oakland, and Berkeley funneling drug dealers, muggers, and the homeless straight to downtown.
- wherewhenwhy 14y ago
- mintyice 14y ago6 minutes of Education is pretty sad.
- ChrisBaldwin 14y agoStatistics are just statistics. Nothing is sad about 6 minutes when the "average" American isn't in school.
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- Super_luigi 14y agothe data is for "average American with a full-time job". This assumes that they have already completed their education. 6 min/day is about 36.5 hours of education, which seems quite a bit for a professional
- ChrisBaldwin 14y ago6 minutes a day is impressive for a professional assuming it is not related to work. Also, for some professionals, working at their job provides education for performing their job better. They should have split working and commuting from each other, or at least provided a split of the data.
- jschuur 14y agoYou don't complete your education, just because you have a full time job. You should never stop learning new things (or revising your opinion/knowledge of things you were taught earlier).
- s8qnze982y 14y agoThey're not "just statistics", as they point to some interesting facts. Americans for example travel less and work more compared to other countries. "6 minutes of education" is definitively negative (although I would personally use "narrow (minded)" in place of "sad") when compared with "90+ minutes of TV".
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- michaelochurch 14y agoHoly fuck those numbers are depressing.
- GuiA 14y agoWhich part depresses you the most? What's your typical day like?
- BrainScraps 14y agoIf you liked that, you'll love this: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/07/31/business/20080801-metrics-graphic.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/07/31/business/20080... Divided by age range, gender, ethnicity...
- simantel 14y agoThis is amazing! Much more data-dense than the NPR piece.
- samg_ 14y ago"The numbers are, of course, averages. So parents may spend much more time, say, caring for children, while people without children will spend no time at all." Stuffed at the bottom, of course. Averages lie!
- dpres 14y agoJust counted... I wrote 169,020 lines of code in 9,691.25 hrs over 4 yrs from 2007-11 for a part-time job while going to school. That's 17.44 lines per hour or 0.29 lines per minute, not including code written for school or leisure!
- iSnow 14y agoHow do Americans procreate?
- jschuur 14y agoLooks like they don't list activities < 5 mins.
- Tycho 14y agoI'd like to see what the difference in time spent 'grooming' is between the sexes, or alternatively what the breakdown is between basic things like showering, teeth-brushing and more advanced activities.
- corkill 14y agoI would like to see the biggest chunk "work" broken down into what most people are actually doing. Time spent on social media, checking email, phone etc.
- andyjohnson0 14y agoIt would be interesting to know how much of the "leisure" time is spent watching television. My guess is almost all.
- k2enemy 14y agoTV: 1hr 35min There is a second graphic with a breakdown of "leisure" and "cooking, cleaning, etc"
- andyjohnson0 14y agoThanks for correcting me. I missed the second graphic. I still find it depressing that TV takes ~50% of an "average" person's leisure/discretionary time. 94 minutes per work-day is just over 407 hours per year, and weekends will add more. Edit: Changed to exclude weekends. Assume 260 work days per year.
- yummyfajitas 14y agoFor anyone who is interested, the microdata is here: http://www.bls.gov/tus/datafiles_2011.htm http://www.bls.gov/tus/datafiles_2011.htm Most of the questions people are asking can be answered with about 20 minutes of work and a little pandas-fu (or excel, if you are that sort of person).
- hessenwolf 14y agoIf anybody gets a chance, a graph that isn't a spiral of circles would make for a slightly easier comparison. Seriously, a spiral of circles?