A comparative analysis of discretionary time allocation for social and non-social activities in the U.S. between 2003 and 2013

We investigate changes in the allocation of discretionary time to social activities between 2003 and 2013 in the United States using data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS). Within this period, several changes particularly around communication technologies have occurred, including the mass adoption of web and video enabled smart phones. Other advances include social networking platforms, low cost subscription based streaming movies, multi-person online gaming etc., which collectively can alter how people spend their discretionary time and their social activity time use. Summary statistics from the ATUS show a decline in the number of people reporting face-to-face social activities and a growth in the average leisure time spent alone between 2003 and 2013. At the same time, we observe modest declines in average time allotted to social activities and to mandatory activities. We separate time spent on discretionary activities into social activity time use and non-social activity time use and employ five doubly censored Tobit models to investigate time allocation for social and non-social activities between these two time points. These models show that the relative proportion of discretionary time allotted to face-to-face social activities has declined between 2003 and 2013. The apportionment of social to non-social time is also influenced by other sociodemographic variables such as gender, age, household structure, education and work hours. We summarize the implications of these findings to transportation and beyond.