The most trusted non-partisan source of data in the United States, the Pew Research Center, just released its newest study, “How do U.S. Men and Women Spend Their Time?” and every marketer in the country should be gobsmacked. The statistics coming out about our consumers are nothing short of astonishing, and call for a global sea-change in how we message any product or brand to the public.
The TL;DR: While Americans are, on average, sleep deprived and unfit (2/3 of the country is overweight or obese), they are also less productive, more sedentary, and most terrifyingly, socially and civically disengaged in a dystopian isolationism that should trouble all of us. But there is a positive way forward for us as a society, and incredible opportunity for any brand or business that sees these stats and adjusts their operations, products, and marketing to meet Americans where they are.
Let’s dive in to the what, and why it matters. (Read more for yourself at https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/feature/how-do-u-s-men-and-women-spend-their-time/.)
Americans – of all age groups and genders – get less than 20 minutes of exercise a day and (bewilderingly) claim to sleep 8.5+ hours a night. But they spend just about an hour total eating each day (rushing any meal of any consequence), and, for the most part, self-report they work less than 7 (men) and 6 (women) hours a day.
With 168 hours in a week, where does all that extra time go? For all the talk of the Christian right or the engaged voter, it doesn’t go to religion, politics, or civic engagement, which clock in at just under 20 minutes a day maximum. Nor does it go to childrearing and caregiving, which is de minimus except for folks in their 30s and 40s, who spend just 1 hour a day on that activity (begging that question, who’s babysitting…?!).
But it doesn’t stop there, folks! Shockingly, Americans claim to spend twice as much time on housework as they do on raising their own children, around two hours a day, and shopping or online shopping just about as much as caregiving (around an hour a day).
So, at last, we come to the holy grail: how do Americans spend their time?
Alone.
As they grow older. Americans go from spending two hours a day watching TV (in their 20s) to 5 hours (in their 70s). Similarly, they go from spending 4 hours a day (in their 20s) “relaxing” alone in their own home setting to almost 7 hours a day (in their 70s). But wait, what about friends? Well, the New York Times has already reported 40% of adult men over 18 self-report having zero friends. Want to know why? Almost no single age group or gender in America spends more than 30 minutes a day socializing (women in their 50s and 60s make it to just 41 minutes, the most of any group).
Setting aside that these statistics confirm what we already suspected or knew—that Americans are lonely, and taking little self-initiative to fix that problem—it begs the question here of, what are you and your business going to do about it? Why does it matter?
It matters because people don’t care about slick ads anymore. They don’t care about your cute social impact campaign. The vast majority don’t really even care who you support politically (or, rather, they don’t let it change their behavior or spending habits). They care whether you and your brand are their friend. They care about loneliness, even if they can’t vocalize it, and whether you make them feel better.
The continued acceleration of the creator (influencer) market is just a steppingstone to the ultimate destination: a place where your customers feel like you, “unnamed brand disembodied” except through name, stock price, and creative advertising, are their friend. They want to feel like you care about them. That you want to know what they think, and how they feel. That you want to make them feel wanted, loved, connected. In their deep isolationism, they want you to be their veritable lifeline to sanity, safety, security.
How does that change business? Well, you sure as hell better be getting an A+ in customer experience at all costs. You should invest in AI, of course, and then dump every dollar of cost savings into crafting human-to-human interactions. Every upset customer goes from previously being one coupon away from re-engagement, to in today’s world, to an angry, spiteful, vengeful (lonely) friend who feels betrayed and whose trust is exponentially harder to win back than it was to win in the first place.
That’s just the start. If these statistics, and what they say about Americans, are not enough to shock your marketing and business strategy into a completely new gear, then you’ve already missed the boat. But for those who read the tea leaves correctly and meet these lonely, disenchanted humans where they are? You’re building loyalty that will last for decades. Why? Because now you have abest friend. And so do your customers…in you. High risk, high reward, but also now and for the foreseeable future, table stakes for any consumer-facing brand.