How Americans spend their time

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.

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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.