Retale.com has a fascinating graphic up representing how Americans spend their time. Using the BLS data set I love as well, they show what chunk of the population is doing what at any given time.
It turns out that between 8 and 9 p.m., a third of the population is watching TV. What’s interesting about that is that the percentage of Americans who are working never hits that — not even at 10 a.m. Partly that’s because most people don’t work all 7 days (whereas TV is always available). If you look at weekdays, the proportion working during the morning edges out the proportion watching TV at 9 p.m. But not by much. Lots of people are not in the workforce, or are not in the workforce full time. The graphic is called the “Busy States of America.” But when you look at everyone, and all 7 days, a different picture emerges.
What do you do at 9 pm? These days I seem to still be trying to get kids to sleep. After that, though, it’s House Hunters on HGTV, at least during vacation.
Usually at 9pm I’m taking a shower and getting ready for bed.
Another sleeper here…or at the very least, I’m working on getting ready for bed.
TV is not my drug of choice. I often go weeks or months without watching any at all, in fact. It’s mostly because I don’t have the patience for it…I’d rather be doing something where I can control the pace (for instance, internet surfing.)
With a 4 week old baby – at 9pm I’m either asleep or breastfeeding! I try to get ready for bed around 8pm at the moment to get enough sleep cobbled together … Ideally though, at 9pm I’d be reading for fun or working on a crochet project. I’m usually in bed ~10pm.
Wait, you had a baby? Congrats!
Thanks!
@Zenmoo – congrats on the new addition! Yes, a 4-week old baby will change up the schedule for a while…
Congratulations!!
Sleeping
In bed, reading or sleeping, even on the weekends.
Love the graphic – it really highlights the association of time use with age. I feel like I make this comment every time you write about time use, but, as the graphic so clearly shows, it really doesn’t make sense to write about overall average time use. You have to speak to habits of specific groups. A typical reader of your blog is going to have very different time use habits than a teenager or a retiree, and looking at averages that include those very different groups “muddies the water” so to speak.
For example, if you look at people who are employed (I’m using that as a surrogate for being between being out of college and not yet retired), more people are working at 9am than watching TV at 9pm. That’s because, from the graphic, people over age 65 and especially over age 75 are not working and watch a lot of TV in the evening. Teenagers aren’t working but actually seem to be pretty low evening TV consumers.
During the week, I’m usually fixing dinner at 9 pm while my husband finishes getting our daughter to bed. Weekends we all eat together earlier, so at 9 pm I’m more likely to be fixing a drink or cleaning up the family room so that it’s a nicer environment for grown-up time (which often does end up including watching TV or a movie together).
I’m generally saying goodnight to my eldest at 9:00 pm. And now that my youngest is often asleep by then, yeah, I might end up watching TV. With school starting up again, that’s going to be prime reading time.
Lately I am skipping prime time TV news and opting to chat with wifey about the day and plans for the next day.