The New York Times article More phone calls, less shopping: how the pandemic changed American lives, down to the minute examines data from the American Time Use survey to show the changes in how Americans spent their time last year.
The article charts below (click to enlarge) shows the biggest winners and losers, time-wise.
The key change from 2019 is that during the second half of 2020, Americans spent ten waking hours a day at home. This is up from 8 hours in 2019.
We spent about a third of that time on leisure activities, with the rest spread out across a variety of endeavors – including getting a bit more sleep.
According to the data, we spent less time on grooming, but only 5 minutes less per day. This is likely an example of people not telling the truth on surveys.
Based on our personal experience and anecdotal observations of others, grooming time fell by much more than that.
The question is: what will change and what will remain? Where and how will we decide to spend our time when we enter the “new normal?”
