American Time Use Survey 2025: TV still led leisure as games and computer use rose to 37 minutes a day

Watching TV was still the leisure activity that took up the most time in the United States in 2025: 2.6 hours a day, or half of the 5.2 hours that people age 15 and over spent on leisure and sports on an average day. The figures come from the American Time Use Survey, the federal survey of how people spend their time, whose 2025 results the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics published on June 25, 2026. Over the past decade, the survey shows more time going to games and leisure computer use and less to socializing.

Where the leisure hours went

In 2025, 95% of people age 15 and over did some leisure or sports activity on an average day. Men spent more time on it than women, 5.6 hours against 4.8. Adults 75 and over averaged 7.4 hours a day, nearly twice as much as people ages 35 to 44, at 3.9 hours.

The averages hide who takes part. On an average day in 2025, 74% of people watched any TV, down from 80% in 2015, but those who watched spent about as long as a decade earlier: 3.51 hours, against 3.48. Reading followed a similar path. In 2025, 16% read for personal interest on an average day, down from 21% in 2015, and readers spent 1.67 hours on it, against 1.54.

TV time also rises at weekends. In 2025, people watched 3.27 hours on weekend days and holidays, against 2.33 hours on weekdays that were not holidays. Men watched more than women, 2.81 hours a day against 2.42. Games and leisure computer use varied less: 0.69 hours on weekend days and holidays, against 0.59 on weekdays.

Screens and games

The clearest change is in play. People spent 37 minutes a day playing games or using a computer for leisure in 2025, against 25 minutes in 2015, the BLS said. The category covers computer, board and card games and using a computer or the internet for personal interest, so it is wider than video games. Teenagers lead it: people ages 15 to 19 averaged 1.5 hours a day, about as long as they spent watching TV.

TV time is highest among older people. People 65 to 74 averaged 4.2 hours a day and those 75 and over 4.4 hours, against 1.5 to 1.9 hours for people ages 15 to 19 and 25 to 44.

Socializing went the other way. On an average day in 2025, 30% of people spent time socializing and communicating, down from 38% in 2015, and the average time fell to 35 minutes from 41.

How to read the survey

• Who and how: about 6,100 people were interviewed in 2025, by telephone, about what they did on the day before the interview. The results describe people age 15 and over in the United States.
• Main activities only: the estimates count the primary activity at each moment. The survey does not collect what people do at the same time, apart from some childcare.
• The 2025 gap: all survey operations stopped from October 1 to November 12, 2025, during the federal government shutdown, so there are no data for September 30 to November 11. Collection resumed on November 13. The BLS says the shutdown mainly affected fourth-quarter data and that its effect on the estimates cannot be quantified.
• Margins: the figures are estimates from a sample, subject to sampling and other errors, and the BLS generally tests its comparisons at the 90% confidence level. Small differences between years or age groups, such as teenagers' TV and gaming time, may not be statistically meaningful.
• 2020: the BLS published no annual estimates for 2020 because of data collection issues that year.

How it compares with industry data

The survey measures time as people report it, across the whole day. Industry figures answer other questions. Nielsen's Gauge splits the time Americans spend watching their TV sets among streaming, broadcast and cable: see how the Gauge works. The Entertainment Software Association counts how many Americans play video games for an hour or more a week: see its 2026 survey.

What is current

These are the latest annual time-use figures. On October 31, 2026, the survey's list of news releases showed the June 25 release on 2025 as its newest annual results. Two later releases, on August 26 and September 24, 2026, covered workers' access to leave and their job flexibilities and work schedules in 2024 and 2025.