Time Spent on Activities by Adults: A 30-Year Trend Analysis

The two bar graphs illustrate the time consumption percentile on six activities by adults between 1980 and 2010. Overall, non-essential activities showed declining trends over time.

In 1980, adults allocated the highest amount of time on socializing, with more than 22%. This was followed by doing hobbies and sports, and reading, which together accounted for a quarter of the total time spent. The remaining three activities did not consume as much time, with eating making up the lowest percentage.

By 2010, the time spent on eating and cooking had continued to decline, while the time spent on shopping and doing hobbies had shown clear increments of 5% each. Although socializing used to be the more popular choice, it had decreased and was surpassed by the time spent on hobbies and sports.

It can be clearly seen that the time that used to be spent on preparing meals and eating had been allocated to doing personal hobbies according to the three-decade data.