V-06c: Share of Americans Who Engage Intensively in Leisure Activities, By Selected Age Groups

The American Time Use Survey activity codes used for this analysis are listed below. One of the objectives of the analysis was to gauge how much time people spent reading relative to time spent on screens. Though some of the activities under “120307 Playing games” do not involve electronic entertainment, the category was included because it captures time spent playing computer games.

120312 Reading for Personal Interest

• reading a magazine/book/newspaper (personal interest)
• flipping/leafing through magazine (personal interest)
• listening to books on tape/audio books (personal interest)
• borrowing books from the library
• doing research (personal interest)
• checking out library books
• being read to (personal interest)
• reading, unspecified
• returning library books/browsing at the library
• reading a book on a Kindle or other electronic book reader (personal interest)

120307 Playing games

• playing board games/Scrabble/cards
• playing computer games/playing games over the Internet
• hiding matzo (Passover)/hiding Easter eggs
• playing poker
• hitting a pinata
• spinning dreidels
• playing bingo

120308 Computer use for leisure (exc. Games)

• computer use, unspecified
• surfing the internet/web (personal interest)
• downloading files, music, pictures (personal interest)
• Using Twitter or tweeting
• writing computer software (personal interest)
• checking Myspace
• computer use, leisure (personal interest)
• browsing on the internet (personal interest)
• participating in a chat room (personal interest)
• designing/updating website (personal interest)
• checking Facebook/Instagram
• computer programming (personal interest)