Bureau of Labor Statistics

Skip the main URL and go here:

http://www.bls.gov/tus/

And here you'll find the endlessly fascinating ongoing study of how Americans spend their time. Started in 2003 and continuing as you read this, people of most ages across the States are being called up on the phone and asked whether they were asleep at the time, or how long it took them to eat breakfast this morning. And all this data is available to the public in documentary form, if you have the time to download and read it.

The samples are pretty substantial - more than a quarter of a million people were studied in 2008, the last complete year for which all the statistics are available. I could spend ages picking out interesting information here, but I'm just going to skip to the simple summary of principal activities for the 25-34 year old age group:

2.25 hours a day were spent watching TV, more than double the time spent eating and drinking, almost four times the number of hours spent socializing and ten times the time spent in exercise, sports and recreation.

So, no surprises there.

Nine percent of men in this age group own up to playing games (mostly computer games) on an average day, whilst nineteen percent claim they participate in sports and recreation. Meanwhile, twenty-four percent of women are busy doing the washing and... er... zero hours are spent by anyone on health-related self-care.

It's fascinating, and the amount of data is overwhelming if you get really into it. Most likely though, you'll want to browse your own age group and maybe look ahead to the next, just to see what's coming. In this age group, the bad news is that you're going to be working harder, for a long time before you get to work less. But you knew that already.