Spare Time

One potential benefit of the severe recession we've been through since 2008 is that fewer work hours, whether due to layoff or simply working less hours, is a time dividend that can be put to more productive use (psychologically, if not economically) building relationships, experiences, and memories with ourselves and our loved ones.

It appears, however, that reality may be a bit different than the theory. The Wall Street Journal yesterday ran an article highlighting how unemployed and under-employed Americans are spending the free time they used to spend working. Comparing 2007 and 2009 data from the Labor Dept.'s American Time Use Survey, the authors find that most people are watching TV and sleeping; daily time spent on those activities increased by an average 12 minutes and 6 minutes, respectively, over the two years. Meanwhile there was virtually no increase in the time spent volunteering, exercising, participating in religious activities, pursuing education, or even working on household chores. Says University of Texas economist Daniel Hamermesh of the time dividend: "It's a waste."

A couple of thoughts here. First, the Time Use Survey covers all Americans, not just laid off or under-employed Americans, so those left behind at companies, who are now doing the work that two or three used to do, could be offsetting the statistics from the unemployed. Second, some desirable activities may not show up in the available answers to the questions. If I now spend the afternoon helping my wife make dinner, it may take us 20 minutes instead of 30 minutes that it takes her alone. In the survey result her time on housework would go down while mine would go up; but the intangible benefit of doing something together and spending more time talking doesn't show up anywhere in the data.

Still, the fact that TV time is growing is troubling because it is growing off an already high base: nearly 3 hours per day for adults. There is nothing inherently wrong with TV, but to think that three hours out of every 16-hour waking day is spent in passive consumption of entertainment is disappointing, and indicates that many of us are missing much that is happening in the world around us. As I've noted before, very few of your most precious memories are created in front of a screen. Only by engaging with the world around us--the people, the sights, the sounds--do we really live; living comes through doing. Passively watching other people live their lives on screen (terribly misnamed as "reality TV") is a poor substitute.

What are you doing with your free time?