I found an interesting interactive graphic on the New York Times website which offers a glimpse into how different groups of people spend their time.  I thought the arrangement of this visualization was interesting because it almost looks upside down…I’m not sure if this is a good or a bad thing, but I wonder how the designers chose the order of the layers (like putting “sleep” on the bottom).  It helps that you can click on the graph to see particular areas individually.  On the other hand, the chart does make it easy to spot trends over time.

Some observations I made:

• People with kids tend to spend more time working – is this because they are providing for their family, or avoiding it?
• The higher one’s education, the less likely they are to watch TV and the more likely they are to be using the computer
• More people who are unemployed spend time on education, household activities, and TV than those with jobs.
• There are more men who travel (to work?) very early in the morning than women.

Link:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/07/31/business/20080801-metrics-graphic.html?ref=multimedia