What The Heck Are You Doing?
August 12th, 2009
By gchalekian
By gchalekian
You have customers, clients, an audience–somebody to whom you're directing your marketing efforts. Wonder what they're doing every minute of the day? Media people do. The American Time Use Survey asked thousands of American residents over the age of 15 to recall every minute of a day. Here are some of the highlights of what they reported.
7:00 a.m.
- 47% of Americans are still asleep. This shows that 47% of Americans do not have young children, a dog, or a cat.
- 12% of us are working. And frankly, we're annoyed at the 47% of you that are still sacked out.
- 10% are engaged in "personal care" activities, which we will define later at a more appropriate hour.
9:00 a.m.
- 29% of Americans are working. That's it? Now I know why I spend so much time on hold.
- 12% are doing household activities.
- 1% are volunteering. Perhaps in ways that involve coffee.
12:00 p.m.
- 26% of Americans are at work thinking about lunch.
- 12% of us are at lunch.
- 8% are watching TV or movies and presumably having popcorn for lunch.
5:00 p.m.
- 18% are still on the clock. Considering they were still asleep at 7:00 a.m. this is not exactly a crushing schedule.
- 12% are traveling, meaning that they probably cut out early.
- 6% claim to be "socializing," which we can safely read as: happy hour.
9:00 p.m.
- 38% are watching TV or movies -- the single most popular activity at this hour.
- 6% are still at work to make up for sleeping in.
- 5% have yet to leave the bar.
For a much more interesting view of how America spends its time, take a few minutes to play with this interactive chart at the nytimes.com. You can segment by gender, ethnicity, education level, and more – in the process learning that "personal care" includes activities like showering and grooming. (It also includes an average of 54 seconds spent on ''personal or private activities,'' like having sex.) No wonder America sleeps so late.
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