Life and Time Spent by the Average Joe Blow
Welcome back!
Can life be summed up in merely a few words? In some ways — yes it can. When you add up the time spent in your daily routine over the years or your entire existence on this planet, the numbers can seem even larger than life.
Photo Silverfox09
The Average American Joe Blow Will:
Drive 789,000 miles (1284256 km) in a lifetime — 9,100 hours commuting for work alone
Walk 35,000 miles (56,327 km) in a lifetime, equal to the distance from Paris to Shanghai and back — twice
Talk 5,508 minutes a year on cell phones
Watch 9 years of TV including 2,000,000 commercials
Work 122,400 hours for the government in a lifetime
Kissing — 2 weeks (336 hours) of our lifetime is spent kissing another person
Photo Suneko
Statistics vary to some degree between official studies and research, but the results are staggering.
Via: Medical Billing and Coding
Source: Online MBA
Americans spend more time watching TV, listening to the radio, surfing the Internet and reading newspapers than anything else except breathing.
Photo R’eyes
Talking on Cell Phones
What is the average time Americans spend on cell phones yearly? Average monthly usage is around 459 minutes. Multiply that by 12 and you get 5,508 minutes, or about 91.8 hours.
Photo Jurvetson
Eating
According to 2006 ATUS and Module data Americans age 15 and older spent 67 minutes on an average day in ‘primary’ eating and drinking beverages — that is as a self-reported main activity.
Photo Bruce Tuten
Additionally, Americans spent an average of 16 minutes eating and 42 minutes drinking beverages — other than water — as secondary activities, such as while working, watching TV, or playing sports.
An additional 7 minutes were spent in associated activities (such as travel time to a restaurant and waiting to order). Men and women spent about the same amount of time eating and drinking,
About two-thirds of primary eating/drinking time was spent with family or others. However, only 42% were with others for secondary eating or secondary drinking, with the rest done either alone, at work, or while grooming or other personal care activities.
Only 38% of Americans entertain friends or family at home at least once a year.
Time Spent on Elevators
How much time do Americans spend waiting for, or standing in elevators? The answer is startlingly high.
Image Infrastructurist.com
Internet
US internet users spent less time online in January 2010 than December 2009, but did more with the time they spent, according to The Nielsen Company.
Google’s first production Server. Photo Jurvetson
The total number of active US internet users rose 3.8% between December 2009 and January 2010, from 195.7 million to 203.1 million. Those users increased their sessions per person 7.8%, from 51 to 55, and also visited 8.4% more domains, 90 compared to 83. The number of web pages visited per person rose 0.3%, from 2,614 to 2,621.
However, US internet users were doing more in less time. Monthly PC time per person dropped 8.2%, from 64 hours, 9 minutes and 12 seconds to 58 hours, 52 minutes and 5 seconds.
Television
According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day — or 28 hours/week, or 2 months of nonstop TV-watching a year. In a 65-year life, that person will have spent 9 years glued to the tube.
Photo Cloudzilla
Working
The average American aged 15 or older spent 3 hours, 11 minutes a day working in 2009, according to the American Time Use Survey released by the Labor Department on Tuesday — 17 minutes less time a day engaged in work than in 2007, before the recession hit. While that might not seem much, when it’s averaged over the entire population, including employed people, those who have lost a job and retirees, it’s a significant amount.
Photo Nattu
So what did people do with that extra time? While you’d think with so many having more time on their hands — possibly due to unemployment — they might turn to other ‘productive’ activities, but apparently that’s not true. Get ready for this — Americans are watching more television and sleeping more.
Time spent in front of the television rose by 12 minutes in the two years through 2009. Sleep increased by 6 minutes to 8 hours, 40 minutes a day.
The data also shows what Americans aren’t doing with their extra time. There was virtually no change between 2007 and 2009 in the time devoted to volunteering, religious activities, exercise or education. “In sum, time people might have used productively is instead being squandered.” says University of Texas economist Daniel Hamermesh.
“It’s not like we’re using the recession to build our skills—the skills are depreciating.” says Hamermesh. “It’s a waste.”
‘The anti-botox brigade.’ Photo Emdot
Photo Darkpatator
Working (by Employed People)
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in 2009, employed people worked an average of 7.5 hours on the days they worked. More hours were worked, on average, on weekdays than on weekend days — 7.9 hours compared with 5.0 hours. 83% of employed people worked on an average weekday, compared with 35% on an average weekend day.
Working as a superhero is NO easy task when you have to face daily activities …
like walking around with the family. Photo Eneas
24% did some or all of their work at home, and 84% did some or all of their work at their workplace. Men and women were about equally likely to do some or all of their work at home.
On the days that they worked, employed men worked 56 minutes more than employed women –8.3 hours compared with 7.5 hours.
Multiple jobholders were almost twice as likely to work on an average weekend day as single jobholders — 59% compared with 32%. Multiple jobholders also were more likely to work at home than single jobholders — 32% compared with 22%.
Self-employed workers were 3 times more likely than wage and salary workers to have done some work at home on days worked — 60% compared with 20%.
On the days that they worked, 40% of employed people age 25 and over with a bachelor’s degree or higher did some work at home, compared with only 10% of those with less than a high school diploma.
Household Chores
85% of women and 67% of men spent some time doing household chores such as housework, cooking, lawn care, or financial and other household management on a given day in 2009.
Photo Sarniebill
On the days that they did household activities, women spent an average of 2.6 hours at it, while men spent 2.0 hours.
On an average day, 20% of men did housework — such as cleaning or doing laundry — compared with 51% of women. 40% of men did food preparation or cleanup, compared with 68% of women.
Leisure Activities
On an average day in 2009, nearly everyone age 15 and over spent time in some sort of leisure activity, such as watching TV, socializing, or exercising. Men spent more time (5.8 hours) than women (5.1 hours).
Photo Mike Baird
Watching TV was the leisure activity that occupied the most time — accounting for about half of leisure time, on average, for those age 15 and over. Socializing, such as visiting with friends or attending or hosting social events, was the next most common leisure activity, accounting for nearly 45 minutes a day.
Men were more likely than women to participate in sports, exercise, or recreation on any given day — 21% compared with 16%. On the days that they participated, men also spent more time in these activities than women, 2.0 hours compared with 1.4 hours.
Adults age 75 and over spent 7.8 hours a day engaged in leisure activities — more than any other age group. 35 to 44-year-olds spent 4.3 hours in leisure and sports activities — less than other age groups.
Time spent reading for personal interest and playing games or using a computer for leisure varied widely by age. Individuals age 75 and over averaged 1 hour of reading per weekend day and 26 minutes playing games or using a computer for leisure. Conversely, those between 15 to 19 of age read for an average of 5 minutes per weekend day while spending 1 hour playing games or using a computer for leisure.
Tags:eating elevators gardening housework internet leisure life sleep socializing sports statistics talking television time spent work
Cool. Really nice point.
Specially the title ‘Time Spent By The Average Joe’
Also really nice photography you have in there.
From these statistical measures it is easy to judge the over all flavor of the nation. It is research work and really appreciable
You are doing an outstanding job with your blog, Deborah. I’m glad to have found it. I have referenced this post in my own latest post at:
http://blog.pelland.com/2010/08/15/don%e2%80%99t-waste-time-fishing-in-an-unproductive-pond/
Keep up the good work!
“It’s not like we’re using the recession to build our skills—the skills are depreciating.” says Hamermesh. “It’s a waste.”
agree..now i know why time is gold..^_^