"Too much time on my hands?"

I was driving back to Chicago the other day and saw a billboard advertising an upcoming concert by the rock band Styx.  They were really popular in the 1970's and early 1980's, and at one time, I owned a number of albums by the band.  One of their best-selling albums was a concept album called Paradise Theatre.  The album told a fictional account of the story of the real Paradise Theatre in Chicago, which was a metaphor for the changing times in America from the 1970's to the 1980's.  The album was released in 1981 and was certified triple-platinum, reaching #1 on the album charts for about three weeks.  There were four singles released from the album, and two of these singles made it into the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 ("The Best of Times", which made it to #3 and "Too Much Time on My Hands", which made it to #9).

Notably, the second hit single ("Too Much Time on My Hands") doesn't really have anything to do with the Paradise Theatre story.  It's still a good song that talks about a guy who spends all day at a local bar because he has too much free time.  The following lines sums up the rest of the song perfectly:

Well I'm so tired of losing

I've got nothing to do and all day to do it.

Well I'd go out cruising, but I've no place

To go and all night to get there.

Now that you see how a billboard advertisement can trigger a fond memory from my adolescence, let's get to the topic at hand, which actually, is about having too much free time (see, there's a method to my madness).  I want to talk about a recently published study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.  The study received a lot of attention in the lay media, and I actually think I first heard about it via a Twitter post by Adam Grant.  The study's main objective was to determine the relationship between discretionary (i.e. "free") time and subjective well-being.  In other words, how do Americans feel when they have "too little" or "too much time" on their hands?  I suspect that there would be few to dispute the point that having "too little" time on our hands is not good for our state of well-being.  

What's unique about this study is that the investigators (Marissa Sharif, Cassie Mogilner, and Hal Hershfield) are proposing that there is an inverted U-shaped curve between discretionary time (on the X-axis) and well-being (on the Y-axis).  Think about the inverted U-shape curve as following the "Goldilocks principle" - too little or too much discretionary time is associated with lower subjective well-being, with an optimal point somewhere in the middle where the amount of discretionary time is "just right" for subjective well-being.  

The first portion of the study utilized a large pre-existing data-set (National Study of the Changing Workforce), in which 13,639 American workers were surveyed between 1992 and 2008.  Study participants were asked to rate, among many other things, their subjective well-being, as well as the average amount of discretionary time per day.  While they were unable to demonstrate a U-shaped curve here, there was a significant negative quadratic (i.e. curved) relationship between discretionary time and subjective well-being.  In other words, as the amount of discretionary time increased, subjective well-being decreased (at least after a certain point).

The second portion of the study utilized another pre-existing data-set (American Time Use Survey, or ATUS), which included survey data from 21,736 Americans (both working and non-working).  This particular survey was a little more detailed, in that individuals were asked to provide a detailed account of all the activities that filled the 24 hours before completing the survey (among several other questions, including of course subjective well-being).  Sharif, Mogilner, and Hershfield conducted a second survey of 500 individuals to classify the various activities listed in the ATUS as discretionary or non-discretionary.  With this second data-set, the investigators showed that there is an inverted U-shape relationship between discretionary time and subjective well-being.  As a matter of fact, they found that overall, subjective well-being increases as discretionary time increases from zero to two hours per day, peaks between two to five hours per day, and then decreases after five hours per day!

Sharif, Mogilner, and Hershfield took their analysis one step further.  They were able to drill down and determine that (1) when individuals spend their discretionary time in social (as opposed to solitary) activities, more discretionary time is better (there is no peak, where a further increase in discretionary time leads to lower subjective well-being) and (2) when individuals felt that their discretionary time was productive (the time is not "wasted"), more discretionary time is better (again, no peak).  

The last two portions of the study were simulated experiments, in which individuals were asked to mentally simulate having a certain level of discretionary time per day over the course of six months.  Study subjects were randomized to different amounts of discretionary time.  The results of these last two portions of the study were consistent with the second data-set analysis, in that there was an inverted U-shape relationship between discretionary time and subjective well-being.

I can imagine what all of you are thinking right now.  The last several months have been incredibly disruptive, and there is a national labor shortage in a number of industries, including health care.  It's difficult to imagine that having more free time could actually worsen our subjective well-being.  That was my feeling too, when I first heard about this study.  However, as I think about it more and reflect on my professional life before the pandemic, I start to understand (and agree with) the results of this study more.  Think about a time when you had plenty of down time at work.  Did you feel "bored out of your mind"?  

We all need down time in our lives, both our professional ones as well as our personal ones.  What these investigators have shown (and perhaps what we've know all along) is that having too much down time is not necessarily a good thing.  The sense of being unproductive when we have too much down time causes a level of stress that actually lowers our sense of well-being.  Shifting that down time towards either productive (think of spending time exercising or doing an outdoor activity as productive free time versus watching television, which is unproductive, at least according to this study) or social activities may help alleviate this negative effect on well-being and lead us back to eudaimonia!