People spend their time differently at different ages. For instance, young adults spend more time on sports and exercise than older adults do. Another example: On the average, people from 25 through 34 spend more time than others caring for children.
We know all of these kinds of things because the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been conducting the American Time Use Survey since 2003. It samples people 15 and older from representative households across the country. In this post, I’m drawing from the results from 2012.
The survey also shows that there are differences in the times of day when people do things. For example, young adults are most likely to exercise between 3 and 6 pm, whereas the oldest adults do most of their exercising in the mornings.
There is one time when Americans adults of all ages, from the very youngest to the very oldest, are especially likely to all be doing the same thing. That time is 9 o’clock at night. So can you guess what the activity is that so many Americans share at that time?
If you guessed watching TV, you are correct. In every age group, adults are more likely to be watching TV at 9 pm than at any other time of the day or night. Also, substantial percentages of people in each age group are watching TV at that time. They could, in theory, be doing all sorts of things instead – working, sleeping, studying, exercising, or anything else you can think of – but more than 20 percent of the youngest adults are watching TV. The percent is even greater for the older groups, topping 40 percent for the oldest group.
In a later post, I’ll describe how the use of time for sports, leisure, and socializing differs for single and married people.
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And they are apparently too stupid to realize how easy it is to ensure they are called out for their bad behavior.
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Bella DePaulo (Ph.D., Harvard; Visiting Professor, UC Santa Barbara), an expert on single life, is the author of several books, including “Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After†and “Singlism: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Stop It.†Dr. DePaulo has discussed singles and single life on radio and television, including NPR and CNN, and her work has been described in newspapers such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, and magazines such as Time, Atlantic, the Week, More, the Nation, Business Week, AARP Magazine, and Newsweek. Visit her website at www.BellaDePaulo.com.
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    Last reviewed: 20 Mar 2014
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