Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

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August 25, 2008

Social Networking: How Do You Spend the Time of Your Life?

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 1:12 pm

Work / Life Balance? Blending?

The Living Web

These days we hear a lot about work/life balance. I’m not sure I know what that means. We don’t keep life in one box and work in another. I’m sure that time I work counts as part of my life.

Every minute I breathe is a minute of my life I’m investing.

We only get one life and most of us work 30-50% of our waking hours. Do the math. Check the facts for an average person age 25 – 54.

American Time Use Study

Time available: = 24.0 hours
Time spent:
Working = 8.2 hours
Sleeping: = 7.6 hours
Leisure = 2.6 hours
Eating / Drinking = 1.1 hours
Household chores = 1.0 hours
Caring for others = 1.1 hours
Other = 2.4 hours
NOTE: Data include employed persons on days they worked, ages 25 to 54,
and who lived in households with children under 18. Data include non-holiday
weekdays and are annual averages for 2006.

If this “average day” does not sound like a typical day in your household, it is because these numbers are for all persons in the U.S. age 15 and over, and for all days of the week combined. The information can be further analyzed by age, sex, employment status, day of the week, or presence and age of household children. [from the American Time Use Study]

If we’re spending 2, 3, 4 hours a day on social networking, where are we finding the time?

How do you spend your time?

How do you see online behaviors fundamentally changing the ways we spend the time of our lives?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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16 Comments to “Social Networking: How Do You Spend the Time of Your Life?”

  1. August 25th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
    Amy said

    There are people (over age 12) who sleep 7.6 hrs a night? That’s something to aspire to. :-) If not, perhaps four hours from the working could be transitioned to napping? (A girl can hope.)

  2. August 25th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
    Rick Wolff said

    Sleeping, 7.6 hours!? Where, on the planet Somnium? I don’t even have kids, and I average an hour less than that.

  3. August 25th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
    Aneesa said

    I didn’t think parents averaged more than 4-5 hours sleep. What about commuting/travel time? I think I spend more time commuting to/from work and volunteer activities than eating.

  4. August 25th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
    SpaceAgeSage said

    What happened to the shorter work hours technology promised us?

    I must admit, my online time has eaten into my household chores. Perhaps it just makes a good excuse?

    I see that all media, from home movies to online activities, are eating up hours in our efforts to de-stress. Do you know anyone who has too much time on their hands?

  5. August 25th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
    SpaceAgeSage said

    A friend sent me this link “Educating Millennials - Why We’re Doing it Wrong” by Alex Berger http://tinyurl.com/56yccz
    Very insightful about those who are digital natives and how their mindset is different about time usage and education.

  6. August 25th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
    Cara said

    My husband and I were just talking about this. Our work & leisure time are so closely linked because it is in front of a computer. It is hard to make the separation mentally and not feel spent at the end of the day or weekend. We are readjusting our definition of what it means for us to “rest” and have down time. And that means away from the computer.

  7. August 25th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
    Jay Andrew Allen said

    Well, that pie chart’s misleading. It assumes a working person in a knowledge-oriented field (as opposed to physical labor) actually *works* 8.2 hours a day. In reality, it’s probably closer to 4, with the other 4 spent on…well, social networking.

  8. August 25th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
    Exhaling Slowly « cara donahue’s blurst blog ever said

    [...] Exhaling Slowly Jump to Comments “Every minute I breathe is a minute of my life I’m investing.” -Liz Strauss [...]

  9. August 25th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hey Amy!
    I hear ya! But this list is an average over 7 days, so maybe they sleep 16 hours on the weekend nights???

  10. August 25th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Rick!
    So I’m thinking that’s where bloggers are getting the time to spend online. What do you think?

  11. August 25th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Aneesa!
    Commuting sure is a time killer. When I went from a 2-hour commute to a 7-minute commute, I didn’t know what to do with the extra time . . . I figured it out, though and wouldn’t give it back ever again.

  12. August 25th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Sage,
    We do seem to be stressing ourselves by not adjusting to the asynchronous new world. Our relationship to space and time needs make room for new ways to interact.

  13. August 25th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Cara,
    I hear myself saying, “Let go of the keyboard and slowly step away from the computer.” :)

    I so agree.

    We’re losing track of the way that just looking at the sky can refuel us. Words and images can’t give us that.

  14. August 25th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Jay,
    I don’t know that social networking gets so much time outside our circle. Only 13% of internet users are in a social networking site. Most of the population has just gotten to search. I think most parents spend that time with their kids, taking care of their families etc. Before the Internet, I still didn’t have much time. :)

  15. August 26th, 2008 at 1:06 am
    Kurt Henninger said

    Ahhh the time to do social network. For me, it has replaced any TV time I once had.

  16. August 27th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
    2 steps to happiness | Be Passiotive! said

    [...] Strauss recently wrote a post about work / life balance and a study about how people spend most of their time. And the findings indicate that most people [...]

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