Name______Date______
American Time Use Survey (ATUS) Activity - Student Excel Instructions
The American Time Use Survey (ATUS) measures the amount of time people spend doing different activities, such as working, sleeping, and socializing. People who answer the survey questions are asked about the activities they performed “yesterday.”
1. Think about what you did yesterday. Record the amount time you spent on the each of the activities in the Hours and Minutes column in the table. You should include everything you did between the time you got out of bed yesterday until you got out bed today. Remember to add together all of the time you spent on those activities. For example, in the eating and drinking category, remember to add together the amount of time you spent on breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. Leave the “Other” row blank for now. If there was any time you spent doing two of these activities at the same time, split the time evenly between the two activities. For example, if you spent one hour watching TV while eating dinner, allocate half an hour to “Socializing, Relaxing, Leisure” category and half an hour to the “Eating and Drinking” category.
2. In the Minutes column, convert the amount of time spent on each activity from hours and minutes into minutes. Keep in mind there are 60 minutes in each hour.
a. Example: if you spent 2 hours and 15 minutes on an activity, enter 135 into the minutes column. 60+60+15=135
3. Next, convert the number of minutes spent on each activity into a decimal. To do this, divide the number of minutes by 60. Enter this number into the Decimal column.
a. Example: 135 minutes = 2.25
4. Add all of the Decimals together and you should get something close to 24 hours. If your number is less than 24, enter the remainder of hours into the ‘Other” row. This might happen if you couldn’t fit any of your activities into the categories or if you forgot an activity or the amount of time you spent on it.
5. Change the decimals into a percentage of the day. To do this, divide the decimal hours of time you spent on an activity by 24 and multiply by 100 to get a percent. Round to the nearest tenth of a percent. Enter the percents into the Percent column. In the total row, add together all of the percents and you should get a number very close to 100.
a. Example: 2.25 divided by 24 = .09375 x 100 = 9.375% which rounds to 9.4%
6. Now examine your own graph. Use the charts on the following page to answer these questions:
a. Which activities do you spend the most time doing?
Click here to enter text.
b. Compare your use of time to the following average uses of time by US teenagers. How do you compare to the national averages? (Explanation of chart below image)
Click here to enter text.
“Together, sleeping and engaging in educational activities accounted for almost two-thirds of high school students’ time on an average school day. On average, students slept for 8.1 hours and performed educational activities, such as attending class and doing homework, for 7.5 hours.
Students split the remaining time among a range of activities: leisure and sports activities (4.0 hours); travel (1.1 hours); grooming (0.8 hour); eating (0.8 hour); working (0.5 hour); and other activities, such as volunteering, shopping, and doing household activities (1.2 hours).” From How high school students use time: a visual essay by Mary Dorinda Allard, published by Bureau of Labor Statistics.
c. How do you compare with students who are the same gender as you? See explanation below and chart on next page.
Click here to enter text.
“Male high school students spent 1.2 hours more doing leisure activities on an average day than did female high school students (5.7 hours, compared with 4.5 hours).
Male high school students spent more time than female high school students watching TV (2.2 hours, compared with 1.9 hours), playing games and/or using a computer for leisure (1.1 hours, compared with 0.5 hour), and doing sports activities (0.9 hour, compared with 0.4 hour). Female high school students spent slightly more time socializing (1.0 hour) than did their male counterparts (0.8 hour).” From How high school students use time: a visual essay by Mary Dorinda Allard, published by Bureau of Labor Statistics.
7. Now read the following table and answer the questions that follow:
Here's a sample "day in the life" of two teen girls, one in South Korea and the other in the
United States:
SOUTH KOREA / UNITED STATESTime of day / Su-Jin (14 years old) / Sarah (14 years old)
6:30 a.m. / Wake up and prepare to go to school / Wake up and prepare to go to school
7:20 a.m. / Walk to school / Ride school bus to school
7:40 a.m. / Arrive at school / Arrive at school
2:30 p.m. / Still at school (sixth class
period) / All classes end. Go to the gym for basketball junior varsity practice
4:00 p.m. / Leave school / Leave school
4:30 p.m. / Arrive at the educational
institute for additional classes in Korean, English and math / Return home, watch TV, do some
chores
6:30 p.m. / Sleep during the break at the
educational institute / Eat dinner, then watch TV
8:00 p.m. / Return home and have dinner / Start homework
8:30 p.m. / Use the Internet—blog, chat
with friends, play games, visit Web sites / Finish homework and update
Facebook at the same time
9:00 p.m. / English tutor comes to home;
practice English reading and
writing / Listen to music, check Facebook and other Web sites
10:30 p.m. / Continue studying with the
tutor / Go to bed and text friends
11:00 p.m. / Do homework from school and the academic institute while listening to music / Sleep
1:00 a.m. / Go to bed / Sleep
a. What percentage of the day does the South Korean student spend in school, with a tutor or studying? (Hint: there are 1440 minutes in a 24 hr. day)
Click here to enter text.
b. Which student do you think experiences more stress? Why?
Click here to enter text.
c. What financial effect does the South Korean student’s schedule have on her family? How did you infer that answer from the data?
Click here to enter text.
Now your teacher will reveal the answers to you.