

How Different Groups Use Their Time - kingkawn
http://www.nytimes.com//interactive/2009/07/31/business/20080801-metrics-graphic.html?hp

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DanielStraight
This graph does not show how people use their time. It shows how people claim
to use their time. The caption clearly says "The American Time Use Survey asks
thousands of American residents to recall every minute of a day." Not only is
it just what people claim to be doing, it's what they claim to be doing while
later reflecting on it. I don't have the slightest idea what I was doing at
1:00 this afternoon. I would probably guess eating lunch, but that could just
as likely be wrong. Also, I'd be much more apt to claim to be eating lunch
than wasting time with the TV or by just sitting around doing nothing.

I'm not suggesting the graph is completely unreliable. I'm just saying you
need to consider that certain aspects of the graph will be influenced by the
human nature to lie and to remember imperfectly.

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kingkawn
Assuming you have a statistically sound sample size, then these imperfections
should even out overall.

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yalurker
Not really. People have all sorts of biases that will come out when self-
reporting. Things which carry a positive connotation, or that a person is
proud of, will be over-reported. Things that are viewed negatively will be
under-reported. Things which are embarrassing or controversial will be skewed
as well.

If if was random, normally distributed error, then the errors would cancel
out. However, many questions will be biased in one direction, not randomly
around a true median.

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jsz0
Lots of interesting stuff in here. Computer usage seems way too low though.
Who are these people?

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gjm11
The ATUS categorization doesn't have a top-level category for computer use,
and some varieties of computer use get recorded in ways that don't indicate
that a computer was involved. So the actual amount of computer use time might
be bigger than reported, both because not all computer use is explicitly
recorded as such and because whoever made the interactive graphic might have
missed some categories.

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DanielStraight
Which just leads me to say, if you can't report something accurately, don't
report it at all. Reporting an average of 8 minutes a day of computer use is
just absurd.

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noss
Breakfasts are quite faint, unlike lunch and supper. It seems like people with
higher education spend more time eating in the morning, they also have lunch
later (makes sense).

I wonder if it is because they can afford the time and know the benefits, or
if it is a good practice that made you more successful in school.

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kingkawn
The quiet presence of sleeping is amazing. Also I'd be interested if there
were regional comparisons.

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rationalbeaver
Most depressing finding: People age 65+ watch more TV than any other
demographic. If that's what I'm looking forward to, then I am not retiring.

Though it does explain why all TV ads are for drugs...

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eserorg
Conclusion: think about how your startup helps people with their work.

~~~
nostrademons
Looking purely at the graph, I'd say the conclusion should be "think about how
your startup will be more engaging than TV".

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icefox
TV isn't engaging, but very passive. In fact going for engaging might not be a
good thing.

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edw519
Excellent graphic! Would make Tufte proud.

I clicked on the different demographic buttons and also moved the mouse around
and read the tool tip. Was able to come up with quite a few of my own
hypotheses doing this. Amazing what you can do with an organic app over one
that just sits there.

I need to find a way to put this kind of thinking into my own apps. My users
would love it.

~~~
timr
I'm not sure Tufte would agree. This is data that would probably be better
served by a table in many ways.

For example, it's easy to see the large-scale differences between demographics
using this animated graph, but the details are difficult to grasp. And since
the differences in these graphs tend to be in the details, I'm not sure that
the selected visual treatment is particularly useful. Why not an animated
_table_ , with significant changes highlighted on transition?

~~~
req2
Click on the detail you want to track.

~~~
timr
Yes, I saw that. But that just zooms you into a specific type of task, where
you lose all context. You also gain no extra insight into the differences
between demographic groups.

Really, this is just an attempt to put a lot of data into a stacked bar-chart
by making it clickable. It's not particularly judicious in its presentation.

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sfphotoarts
Really interesting way to see the data. Tufte would indeed be pleased with
this.

TV usage seems to be inversely proportional to higher levels of education and
increasing number of children.

There was nothing really very surprising though, except maybe the racial
differences about which I'd not even be able to begin to guess as.

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superjared
One thing I found interesting was that those with no children seemed to work
considerably less. Perhaps it's an age/career-centric thing. Also to note,
those with children spend quite some time in "Family Care" which to me sounds
like maintenance moreso than leisure.

~~~
nostrademons
Could also be a statistical blip. People with no children includes children
themselves (hopefully ;-)), who probably will not be working. Averaged between
them and 20-something yuppies, working hours will be less.

The part that really surprised me is that sleep does not go down much between
having no children and one child. It does go down between 1 child and 2+
children, but not by as much as I'd thought.

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gjm11
The ATUS only covers people aged at least 15, so not exactly _children_. But
yes, this is surely an age effect: university students, e.g., will typically
have no children and do less (of what the ATUS classifies as) work.

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quizbiz
Interesting that across the board, chances are everyone is awake at 7:10 pm
versus noon.

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physcab
Kinda off-topic, but I'm surprised sex wasn't included.

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hugs
It is. See the description for "Personal Care". They say the average for sex
is 54 seconds. :-)

~~~
gjm11
Nice example of the distinction between different kinds of average (see the
"lying with statistics" thread). This is presumably the mean rather than (say)
the median. Perhaps, e.g., 1/3 of the population they sampled is in a
reasonably healthy sexual relationship and not grossly hampered by extreme old
age, ill healthy, etc., in which case the average for that portion of the
population is about 3 minutes per day, which could mean e.g. once a week for
20 minutes.

Then, of course, some respondents might be reluctant to report that they had
sex (pushing the average down) or might tend to exaggerate how long they spent
at it (pushing the average up) or something.

The one thing the figure almost certainly doesn't mean is that a typical sex
act reported in the survey took 54 seconds. Although, depending on how you
define your terms, many of them might be very quick...

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kingkawn
It's also really interesting the differences in sleep habits between
white/hispanic vs. black.

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anigbrowl
There's an even greater discrepancy between people with High school vs
advanced degrees, but I'd be willing to bet that in both cases the difference
is accounted for by people doing low-paid night work rather than any inherent
preference for staying awake until 3am.

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kingkawn
But if we're going off of general population types, then wouldn't that
assumption apply to low-paid hispanic immigrants? I think the difference
between black and the other designated races is compelling and worth looking
in to.

Also, why no Asian differentiation?

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anigbrowl
It's certainly interesting - there might be more data in the government
report.

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olliesaunders
Awesome visualization.

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quizbiz
Proof that our society dictates roles & routines based on age. I think this
will change in the future.

