The Family and Free Time - How We Spend Our Recreational Time (and Dollars)

The panel tracks spending on selected leisure pursuits over recent years and offers some insight into our recreational time.⁴ It raises the question: is the majority of leisure time spent by ourselves?

The leading categories are all for products or services that provide a largely solitary (and sedentary) pleasure. The top category was audio, video, and computer products. Our leisure time is increasingly centered in the home, and we are seeking to make it as comfortable as possible: from big-screen televisions to the newest computer to help us access the Internet. Spending on books and toys has been stable through the 1990s, but again: these dollars support solitary pursuits.

We're buying plenty of stuff. Are we devoting enough of our leisure time to socializing? The "commercial participant amusements" category covers a wide range of activities: we bowl, shoot pool, golf, swim, skate, and gamble. The figures show a steady incline (much of which probably comes from the gambling component of the category) from $24.6 billion in 1990 to $63.1 billion in 1999. There are questions the data do not address: Are we doing these things by ourselves? With a friend or spouse?

We do these things because we enjoy them. But is that enough? Are we becoming increasingly isolated? Do we need to reach out more? We are more likely to be tending our own garden than someone else's: more money was spent on flowers and plants than in clubs and fraternal organizations.

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census. Statistical Abstract of the United States 2001. 121^st ed. Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2001.