When Americans feel the best

January 6, 2023 9:19 AM

Based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an animated video showing which activities make Americans the happiest between ages 20 and 70.
posted by gottabefunky (45 comments total)

People seem to enjoy eating, drinking, and watching TV.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:25 AM on January 6, 2023 [4 favorites]

The American Time Use Survey is quite the dataset. Although as far as I can tell, Americans never reproduce.
posted by credulous at 9:38 AM on January 6, 2023 [11 favorites]

I'm putting in a zero rating for "watching a video where most of the labels are too small to read."
posted by uncleozzy at 9:59 AM on January 6, 2023 [70 favorites]

It's just two and a half minutes of people sleeping.
posted by star gentle uterus at 10:13 AM on January 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

No sex?
posted by brachiopod at 10:15 AM on January 6, 2023 [11 favorites]

I wonder how much of that "eating and drinking" satisfaction comes from "interacting with people who mean a lot to me" vs merely "ingestion of food and drink".
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:17 AM on January 6, 2023 [16 favorites]

most of the labels are too small to read.
I know! There's some activity a small number of people in their late sixties get a huge kick out of, but whatever it is, it's a mystery, especially if you're over 40 or so.
posted by Don Pepino at 10:17 AM on January 6, 2023 [16 favorites]

No sex?
Were you able to determine that somehow? There could be six or eight individual sex acts named for all I can tell.
posted by Don Pepino at 10:20 AM on January 6, 2023 [9 favorites]

"household children"
posted by rodlymight at 10:27 AM on January 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

"Not working for Telecom" seems to be my happy place. Sadly that's not where I am.
posted by symbioid at 10:29 AM on January 6, 2023 [8 favorites]

There's some activity a small number of people in their late sixties get a huge kick out of…


From the higher rez YT link, it looks like “Travelling, misc.”. The granularity of travel for misc., religious, leisure, shopping, etc, make the exclusion of sex even more baffling to me.
posted by brachiopod at 10:34 AM on January 6, 2023 [7 favorites]

So uh.... Eat, drink and be Merry? OK!
posted by mrgroweler at 10:41 AM on January 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

This looked like a really clever -- if maybe a little nonintuitive? -- visualization and I was looking forward to poking through it. Rummaging through data like this and just, I don't know, seeing what normal people are like is fascinating to me since I poked through stuff like it in the Time-Life encyclopedias as a kid.

Even at the highest resolution, though, it was completely inaccessible when presented as a Youtube video in a weird aspect ratio and lots of unused pixels, with exactly three of the most obvious and uninteresting data points as the largest and only actual information-containing objects on screen. All other screen space is occupied by many moving objects that are not information-bearing in any way.

It seems pretty likely that the author intended for this visualization to be powerfully projected on a very, very, very large and very square surface, once, and never to be seen again by any other person. Since they have the data and the code, I hope they consider rerunning the visualization to produce something screen-accessible to the mere masses. It'd be a ton of fun to see.
posted by majick at 10:44 AM on January 6, 2023 [13 favorites]

I'm getting the sense that the smaller the label, the more interesting the activity.
posted by rhizome at 10:58 AM on January 6, 2023 [10 favorites]

I'm assuming one of the little circles for the 50+ crowd represents "wandering around Costco and leaving your cart in someone's way."
posted by mittens at 10:59 AM on January 6, 2023 [31 favorites]

It seems pretty likely that the author intended for this visualization to be powerfully projected on a very, very, very large and very square surface, once

Even so, with the bubbles all jiggling around each other I have to think the pause button and a pointer would be involved in an extended explanation.

I'm assuming one of the little circles for the 50+ crowd represents "wandering around Costco and leaving your cart in someone's way."

Does that include "pulling the cart at your side from the front?"
posted by rhizome at 11:01 AM on January 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

I assume it's the method of collecting data where an app pings you every 10 minutes asking what you're doing and how happy you're doing it? That would explain the lack of "sex" as category, because presumably people responding to the ping quickly stop having sex?
posted by Dotty at 11:02 AM on January 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm assuming one of the little circles for the 50+ crowd represents "wandering around Costco and leaving your cart in someone's way."

we would have also accepted "stopping in the middle of the aisle to loudly facetime somebody"
posted by Dr. Twist at 11:13 AM on January 6, 2023 [9 favorites]

So basically, human culture peaked at the invention of prepared food.
posted by biogeo at 11:15 AM on January 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

Wow, that's a great example of how a video is NOT the correct way to show something.
I blame Zuck's multiple pivots to video.
posted by signal at 11:23 AM on January 6, 2023 [11 favorites]

Does the X axis on this visualization mean anything at all?

I feel like using bar graphs, sorted by happiest to least happiest, but the bars showing hours spent at each activity would be clearer.
posted by meowzilla at 11:35 AM on January 6, 2023 [7 favorites]

I was going to say something about how terrible a job this video is doing at conveying this information but this ground sure has been thoroughly covered; I’m glad it’s not just me!

I would have been interested in seeing some of the long tail for people around my age, but, well, “everyone loves eating” is about all I can get out of this, and I live in a city that’s a food tourism destination and I am just stupidly blasé about that.
posted by egypturnash at 11:39 AM on January 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

I definitely want more information in a larger and more readable format.

Also definitely noticing that work bubble sliding toward less happy over your lifetime.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 12:09 PM on January 6, 2023

Making good graphs makes me happy.
posted by neuron at 12:24 PM on January 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

10 minutes between pings? What do I do for the other 9 minutes and 45 seconds?

I'm disappointed that these didn't seem to change that much, and a little surprised at how low childcare or even playing with children scored.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 12:24 PM on January 6, 2023

Why... why are there like 18 separate bubbles for travel to/from activities, and one for computer use, one for working out???? Regardless of the visualization, it seems like the source data was meant to focus on some other metric than happiness.

Note to Future Self, for 50 year olds, travel to/from the gas station will apparently be the happiest moments of one's life.
posted by lemonade at 12:28 PM on January 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

I assume it's the method of collecting data where an app pings you every 10 minutes asking what you're doing and how happy you're doing it? That would explain the lack of "sex" as category, because presumably people responding to the ping quickly stop having sex?

The list of categories is the ATUS is in Appendix H here.

I don't see sex listed, but there are various potential categories: "Personal activities," "Health-related selfcare," "Physical care for household adults," "Socializing and communicating (except social events)," or "Participating in sports, exercise, and recreation." And even "Care for animals and pets, not veterinary care" and "Storing interior household items, including food."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 12:30 PM on January 6, 2023 [6 favorites]

I believe one of the tiniest, happiest bubbles was "Traveling to and from the gas station."
I am just...I need to see this data set.
posted by ourobouros at 12:31 PM on January 6, 2023 [4 favorites]

Traveling to and from the gas station

Well sure. That's where you buy beer and scratchers.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:32 PM on January 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Traveling to and from the gas station

Perhaps it's a euphemism for some kind of extra fun sex?
posted by ourobouros at 12:35 PM on January 6, 2023 [5 favorites]

i was happy when i found the mute button on that video
posted by glonous keming at 1:02 PM on January 6, 2023 [8 favorites]

Traveling to and from the gas station

Well sure. That's where you buy beer and scratchers.

To: Anticipation
From: Beer bought, gas tank full, after-effects of gas station burrito have not yet kicked in
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:23 PM on January 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Well the detailed survey methods were a fascinating rabbit hole. Turns out well-being (happiness) questions 'were not asked for times respondents reported sleeping, grooming, and engaging in personal activities'. And I suspect the deal with all the travel was just that there were so many categories in other life areas that not enough people reported doing them every day for the activity to get its own bubble. A better way might have been to lump smaller categories. Also each activity got a category even if it was only a few minutes--since size of bubble was people doing the activity, not time spent, short frequent activities get more heavily weighted than they probably should be.

Summary: data visualizations need careful thought about how input data is handled for the visualization to be useful.
posted by lemonade at 2:49 PM on January 6, 2023

> "pulling the cart at your side from the front?"

Hey what's wrong with that
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 3:58 PM on January 6, 2023

I'm guessing because that takes up more lateral space in an aisle than pulling it behind you or pushing it in front of you.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:11 PM on January 6, 2023

Well! I'd argue that the improved maneuverability gives you the option of being more considerate of other shoppers, not less. But hey, maybe it's just my cat-like grace with a cart.
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 4:57 PM on January 6, 2023

I maneuver pretty simply and easily using the purpose-built rear mounted handle, but chacun à son goût.

(Also, I've found "consideration" to be on the sporadic side overall, regardless of cart piloting style; but now I'm in danger of sounding like a cliché club comic so I'll stop there)
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:07 PM on January 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Was anyone able read that super-tiny bubble that stayed at the top from 65 onward?
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 12:32 AM on January 7, 2023

I think it says 'Traveling, misc.'
posted by lemonade at 1:21 AM on January 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm getting the sense that the smaller the label, the more interesting the activity.
Exactly! A far more interesting visualisation would filter out the mainstream stuff and show just the niche activities that vary substantially with age. I’m interested in how a visit to a garden centre that would be purgatorial to a teen can later become a highlight.
posted by rongorongo at 5:07 AM on January 7, 2023 [3 favorites]

Age-wise (early-mid 30s) I ought to be at the absolute nadir of kitchen cleanup enjoyment, apparently, but I like it way more now than I did in my 20s. On a population level, I wonder how much stuff like that correlates with overall life resources. I now have a big, well-equipped kitchen, only one other person at home, and a dishwasher; the worst kitchen cleanup years were in tiny, poorly-equipped kitchens with multiple housemates and no dishwasher.

That was the only real insight I could glean from the video since, like everyone else, I found the content tremendously hard to perceive.
posted by terretu at 8:27 AM on January 7, 2023

You people all seem to think the Bureau of Labor Statistics wants you to know what you enjoy doing!
posted by srboisvert at 10:08 AM on January 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

The fact that there's nothing on here about romance or dating or marriage is really weird. I wonder if that's why meals are so prevalent, as they're often relationship time. Not that this is very legible. There's something small that makes an impressive large jump just left of center but I've got no idea what it is.
posted by es_de_bah at 1:49 PM on January 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

I was pretty shocked to see the circle for “interior cleaning” stayed at about the same size as “reading for personal enrichment” - do people really like cleaning, or really hate reading? Who are these people?
posted by Mchelly at 8:48 AM on January 8, 2023

I like both reading and cleaning. Cleaning is something really tangible, that unlike a lot of my other work, pays off right away. I love seeing a counter or a floor get shiny clean, or getting a pile of stuff put away. Cleaning and yardwork are really satisfying in a way that consumption, whether TV or reading, isn't. (I still enjoy both especially reading.)

That said, I clean while listening to podcasts or audiobooks so take that! :)

When my kids were little, I valued the time with them but it was not exactly fun. Sometimes it was but I found some aspects of it really draining. Worthwhile, but during those intense years 'fun' often meant when they were sleeping or someone else was in charge. I suspect this relates in part to who is the primary caregiver as well as a personality thing. Now that my kids are pre-teen and teen in age, time with them *is* fun.

I think this is really interesting in that Time Life way, thanks for posting!
posted by warriorqueen at 11:13 AM on January 8, 2023 [1 favorite]