102,796 moments, two questions

What makes a day happy, and what makes it matter

In 2010, 2012 and 2013, 34,565 Americans told an interviewer for the US government's time-use survey what they had done the day before, activity by activity. For three moments of the day, drawn by the survey from activities of at least five minutes, they then answered two questions, each from 0 to 6: how happy did you feel, and how meaningful was what you were doing? Put side by side, the 102,796 answers show that the two questions measure different things. Before the numbers, try a guess.

Where would you put them?

Drag the three circles to where you think each kind of moment belongs. Right means happier, up means more meaningful, each compared with the same people's other rated hours. The centre is the average rated hour.

On a keyboard: Tab to a circle, then use the arrow keys.

Where they actually land

Watching TV, people felt about as happy as usual (0.00 points on the 0–6 scale), but the moment had much less meaning (−0.60).
At paid work they felt less happy (−0.26), and what they were doing had more meaning (+0.13).
Playing, reading or talking with your children is the highest of all 35 kinds of moment on both (+0.76 and +0.98).

Thirty-five kinds of moment

Each circle is one kind of moment. Its size is how long Americans aged 15 and over spend on it in an average day, with every day of the week counted: from 2 minutes for children's homework to 3 hours 9 minutes for paid work. Its place compares the ratings of that moment with the same people's ratings of their other moments that day, with the company taken into account. So people who rate everything high do not lift an activity just by doing it. Each place still comes from the people who did that kind of thing: job hunting from job seekers, a child's homework from parents. Tap a circle to see its numbers.

The two biggest blocks of the day

The two largest circles sit on either side of the centre. Television takes 2 hours 47 minutes of the average day. In front of it, people felt about as happy as usual (0.00), and the moment was 0.60 points less meaningful than their usual one: the lowest of everything people spend more than a quarter of an hour a day on.

Paid work, 3 hours 9 minutes a day averaged over everyone, is the other way round: −0.26 on happiness, +0.13 on meaning. Games (cards, board games, video games) follow the same pattern as television, more strongly: +0.48 on happiness, −0.49 on meaning.

The hard hours that count

The widest gap runs the other way, in hours of effort. Your own classes and homework: −0.64 on happiness, +0.67 on meaning. Looking for a job: −0.43 and +0.85. A child's homework: not clearly less happy (−0.16), and +0.68 on meaning.

At the doctor's, people were clearly less happy (−0.45); whether the visit felt more meaningful, the ratings cannot say for sure (the 95% range runs from −0.22 to +0.70).

Rated higher on both

Up and to the right sit the moments rated higher on both. At the top: playing, reading or talking with your children, +0.98 on meaning and +0.76 on happiness, more than any other circle. Then children from another home (grandchildren, say), sport and exercise, religious services and prayer, phone calls, pets, looking after your children, parties, volunteering, talking with people, meals and cooking.

Phone calls, +0.32 on happiness and +0.76 on meaning, take 6 minutes of the average day.

Rated lower on both

Down and to the left: washing up (−0.33 / −0.61), laundry (−0.33 / −0.45), getting to and from work (−0.10 / −0.43), bills and paperwork (−0.24 / −0.17) and grocery shopping (−0.19 / −0.22). For these moments, both ratings were lower than those the same person gave their usual moment.

Who is in the room

Moments with other people around were rated higher. The arrows start from a moment spent alone and show how much the ratings change when someone else was there, during the same kind of activity. With friends: +0.48 on happiness, +0.41 on meaning. With your children: +0.24 and +0.37. Other family: +0.17 and +0.35. Your partner: +0.13 and +0.24. With a boss, colleagues or customers, happiness does not change (−0.02) and meaning rises a little (+0.17).

In these diaries, "with" means the person was there, not necessarily that anyone was talking.

Every moment on one field

Tap or click any circle: how far it sits from the same person's usual moment, with its 95% range, the average ratings out of 6, how long it takes in a day and how many moments were rated.

How often happiness and meaning agree

The two ratings were the same number in 40% of the rated time. In 31% they were two or more points apart; meaning came out higher in 32% of the time, happiness in 28%. Across all moments the two ratings correlate at 0.39: related, and far from the same.

Each square is a pair of ratings: happiness across, meaning up, from 0 to 6. The darker it is, the more of the rated time got that pair. On the diagonal the two ratings are equal.

Some people rate everything higher than others, and some days are better than others. About half of the differences between ratings come from the person and their day; the other half changes from one moment to the next within the same day. The field above uses only that second half: each moment is compared with the same person's other moments.

A day like yours

Set the hours of an ordinary day of yours, a quarter of an hour at a time. The dot shows where a day of that shape would land if each hour felt the way Americans' hours of the same kind felt, compared with their own usual moments. The centre is the average of the rated hours. Sleep, washing and dressing are left out, as in the survey.

All 35 kinds of moment, in numbers

Moment	Time per day	Happiness vs usual	Meaning vs usual	Average rating (happiness / meaning, out of 6)	Moments rated
Playing, reading, talking with your children	9 min	+0.76	+0.98	5.4 / 5.6	1,254
Looking for a job	2 min	−0.43	+0.85	3.4 / 5.2	162
Religious services, prayer	9 min	+0.39	+0.83	5.1 / 5.6	1,209
Sport and exercise	18 min	+0.45	+0.79	5.0 / 5.0	1,717
Phone calls	6 min	+0.32	+0.76	4.6 / 4.9	1,111
Volunteering	8 min	+0.15	+0.69	4.8 / 5.3	736
Your children's homework and school	2 min	−0.16	+0.68	4.4 / 5.3	269
Classes and homework (your own)	27 min	−0.64	+0.67	3.8 / 4.4	857
Children from another home (grandchildren, say)	4 min	+0.60	+0.66	5.5 / 5.7	476
Looking after your children	12 min	+0.31	+0.63	4.7 / 5.2	3,195
Pets	6 min	+0.35	+0.60	4.6 / 4.8	1,448
Parties and ceremonies	5 min	+0.43	+0.49	5.1 / 5.1	263
Talking with people	39 min	+0.41	+0.42	5.0 / 5.0	3,705
Garden and lawn	12 min	+0.07	+0.34	4.4 / 4.7	1,036
Music and radio	3 min	+0.42	+0.30	4.5 / 4.5	307
At the doctor's	3 min	−0.45	+0.28	3.4 / 4.6	264
Caring for or helping an adult	7 min	−0.20	+0.17	4.3 / 4.9	887
Eating and drinking	1 h 7 min	+0.26	+0.14	4.7 / 4.6	16,035
Paid work	3 h 9 min	−0.26	+0.13	3.9 / 4.4	6,346
Cooking	26 min	+0.10	+0.11	4.5 / 4.7	6,128
Shows, museums, matches	7 min	+0.45	+0.10	4.9 / 4.4	379
Cleaning the house	31 min	−0.22	+0.07	4.1 / 4.4	3,351
Reading for pleasure	19 min	+0.05	0.00	4.3 / 4.2	1,864
Looking after your own health	5 min	−0.42	−0.03	2.7 / 3.9	609
Relaxing, thinking	17 min	−0.02	−0.12	4.4 / 4.3	1,800
Bills, paperwork, messages	11 min	−0.24	−0.17	3.9 / 4.2	2,236
Shopping, other than food	16 min	+0.07	−0.17	4.5 / 4.3	2,874
Other journeys	55 min	+0.08	−0.18	4.4 / 4.0	19,411
Grocery shopping	6 min	−0.19	−0.22	4.1 / 4.0	1,033
Leisure on the computer	12 min	+0.04	−0.25	4.1 / 3.8	1,053
Getting to and from work	16 min	−0.10	−0.43	4.1 / 3.7	4,551
Laundry	11 min	−0.33	−0.45	4.0 / 4.0	1,616
Playing games	13 min	+0.48	−0.49	4.4 / 3.3	873
Watching TV	2 h 47 min	0.00	−0.60	4.3 / 3.7	9,481
Washing up	7 min	−0.33	−0.61	4.0 / 3.7	1,744

Sorted by meaning. "Vs usual" compares with the same people's other moments; the average rating is the 0–6 rating averaged over all the time spent on it.

What the ratings cannot tell

They are American, from 2010, 2012 and 2013. In the 2021 module, asked during the pandemic, all four patterns written down beforehand held, tested on simple averages: television in the bottom third on meaning, work more meaningful than happy, moments with friends above the same person's average on both, and a similarly loose link between the two ratings (0.46, against 0.39).
They show what goes with what, not what causes what. People choose what to do on a given day, and a good day can lead to a phone call as easily as a phone call can lift a day.
Sleep, washing, dressing and private moments were not rated. Each person's three moments were drawn by the survey's software from activities of at least five minutes; until 2013 an error usually skipped the day's last activity, often television. The figures use the Bureau's weights, which correct for this and for the day of the week.
"With your children" or "with friends" means they were there; the survey does not say whether anyone was talking.
Averages hide differences between people. Someone who loves their work or cannot stand television may rate those hours quite differently. Every number here is an average, and the day built above shows only where a day of its shape lands by those averages.

Method

The data come from the Well-being Module of the American Time Use Survey, 2010, 2012 and 2013, published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics: 102,796 moments rated by 34,565 people aged 15 and over, joined to their diaries (what they were doing, for how long, who was there).
The kinds of moment are the survey's six-digit activity codes, grouped into 35, each with at least 150 rated moments. 2.4% of moments fell outside these groups and are left out.
The place on the field comes from a regression weighted with the Bureau's activity weights, with one term for each person, so every rating is compared with the same person's other ratings; the kind of moment and the company (partner, children, other family, friends, colleagues, other people) enter together. Positions are shifted so that the average of the rated hours sits at the centre. The 95% ranges come from 300 resamples of whole people.
Average ratings and minutes are weighted as the Bureau prescribes for averages over time; the calculation reproduces both examples in its data dictionary to two decimals (pain among employed people in 2010: 0.78 over their whole day, 0.83 while working).
Your day is the average of the hours you set, each at its activity's place; a band of ±0.05 around the centre counts as average.