How Americans spend their time
![](https://assets.weforum.org/article/image/large_eR8oaHie95V-t46SpmjRlx3Lq8oZ5nXunY9CB_IPRmI.jpg)
![A hand holding a looking glass by a lake](/uplink.jpg)
Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale
Stay up to date:
United States
The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released the results of the 2014 American Time Use Survey, an annual survey of around 11,000 Americans who are asked to give a detailed description of what they did on a particular day. Using that data, the BLS can estimate how much time people spent on various activities on average.
The averages are among all survey respondents, regardless of whether or not they participated in a given activity on their survey day. So, for example, people who are unemployed would have been considered to have participated in “work and work-related activities” for zero hours, and are incorporated into the average as such.
Unsurprisingly, the biggest activity was sleeping. Just about every survey respondent reported having slept on their survey day, and the average amount of time Americans slept each day was about 8.80 hours, or 8 hours and 48 minutes.
On average, Americans spent 2.82 hours, or 2 hours and 49 minutes, watching television, and 0.74 hours, or 44 and a half minutes, shopping for goods and services.
Here’s the average amount of time Americans spent doing various things each day:
Business Insider/Andy Kiersz, data from Bureau of Labor Statistics
This article is published in collaboration with Business Insider. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.
To keep up with the Agenda subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Author: Andy Kiersz is a quant reporter at Business Insider.
Image: Morning commuters are seen outside the New York Stock Exchange, July 30, 2012. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid.
Don't miss any update on this topic
Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
The Agenda Weekly
A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda
You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.
More on Jobs and the Future of WorkSee all
Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak and Paul Swartz
August 15, 2024
Juan Carlos Thomas
August 15, 2024
Naoko Tochibayashi and Mizuho Ota
August 15, 2024
Jaci Eisenberg
August 13, 2024
Marcello José Pio
August 6, 2024
Ahmed Mazhari
July 31, 2024