Across all the abundant commentary and analysis on the decline in American religiosity over the last few decades, surprisingly little attention has gone to the influence of how people are actually spending their time.
Public discussion has instead centered on a wide range of concerns and controversies often highlighted as presumably driving the dissolution of faith commitment — from increasing political polarization to disagreements over identity, sexuality and gender.
While all of this no doubt plays a role and is worthy of continued attention, some new data on America’s priorities, reflected in how they spend their time, adds another important angle to the discussion — confirming the extent to which time spent on religious activities in the average American’s day-to-day life is strikingly sparse.
As part of The American Time Use Survey, run by the U.S. government, a cross-section of Americans fill out a record of their previous day — event by event — recording approximately how much time they spent on each event before moving on to the next one. This creates a fairly reliable record of how much time an average American generally spends on various activities — down to the minute.
Since 2003, the government has interviewed nearly a quarter of a million Americans about their daily time use. Even if a day asked about was atypical for a given person, since so many Americans have been interviewed, we can draw some solid conclusions about what the average American’s day looks like at different points in time.
Many of the numbers are what you would expect. For instance, on average, Americans spend nine hours on sleep per day according to the latest 2023 data, and one hour and six minutes on eating (with another half hour on food preparation). They also exercise for about 20 minutes a day.
But other numbers might surprise you. For example, the average American spends 34 minutes a day socializing in some form and half an hour per day on any kind of caring for and helping others in their household (either children or adults). And they read for personal interest a quarter of an hour per day.
The faith numbers are also striking. There are two ways the spiritual dimension was measured: average amount of time spent in formal religious services and time spent in personal spiritual or religious activity on a given day (including things like prayer and scripture study).
On an average day in 2023, the U.S. population spent 3.6 minutes in formal, attendance-based religious practices, which is just over half of the daily 6.6 minutes recorded in 2003. Of course, Americans typically only go to religious services one day a week, with all the non-Sunday days lowering the average (in the case of Christians).
For the purposes of trends, it’s clear that the American Time Use Survey is picking up Americans’ declining proclivity overall for attending religious services.
What about the percent who are engaged in personal spiritual or religious activity on a given day? That number is trending upward, albeit very slightly. In 2003, the average American spent 1.8 minutes daily on personal worship of some kind, while in 2023 they spent 2.4 minutes.
That increase is extremely modest — hardly something to celebrate. But it seems fair to say that to some degree, many Americans are trading worshiping in a formal service for more personal worship.
But there’s a bigger story that’s also loud and clear in this data: Based on how the average modern American chooses to spend their time, it does not appear that spiritual and religious practice is a substantial force in most of their day-to-day lives.
This is especially clear when we compare numbers against each other. For instance, on average, Americans spend nine minutes a day on pet care — about four times as much as they spend on personal spiritual or religious practices. They also spend 22 minutes on gaming per day, which is nine times as much as personal worship. (Since this survey started in an earlier era, unfortunately there’s no category that “smartphone doom scrolling” fits into neatly.)
Of course, Americans have a lot of demands on their time. Yet even with a full schedule of demands, the average American watches TV for more than two-and-a-half hours every day, which is 63 times more than they spend engaging in spiritual and religious activities. That amount of television is also 10 times more than they spend reading, 8 times more than they spend exercising, and five times more than they spend on child care and other forms of family care.
Could this time discrepancy alone help explain the decline in religious devotion taking place in America today?
Some might argue that all these numbers are simply a reflection of the overall decline in religiosity across the nation, as much as they are an explanation for it. But that influence almost certainly runs in both directions. If you spent only 2.4 minutes per day on family relationships, or your job, or on physical fitness, how well do you think any of those areas of your life would flourish?
As the adage goes, whatever you focus your attention on will grow and expand. Or as Jesus famously taught in the Sermon on the Mount, “The light of the body is the eye. If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.”
If Americans aren’t all that focused on spiritual or religious matters on a regular basis, should it really surprise us if these same transcendent realities feel, well, less “real” and relevant to their day-to-day lives?
Imagine how much more intense our spiritual and religious lives would be if we prayed, read scriptures and engaged in spiritual practices for at least some of the two and a half hours that we typically spend watching television?
Of course, television has its benefits, and not all Americans watch that much television (again, this is an average), but this data makes it hard to believe when people say they don’t have time to pray, exercise or become educated — when there appears to be so much other time to spend elsewhere.
Even increasing our spiritual devotions to match how much time we spend on pets would quadruple our level of spiritual devotions. And imagine how much more physically vibrant and healthy one would be if they exercised for a portion of those two and a half hours of daily television — or how much more educated and knowledgeable they would be if they read for more of that time.
Ultimately, we suspect that the American decline in religion we are witnessing is consistent with the decline in institutions and organized activities in general. For example, over this same period of study, volunteerism peaked at an average of 9.6 minutes a day in 2007 for the average American, but has declined abruptly to six minutes a day post-COVID. Labor union membership has also declined dramatically, as has political participation. The decline in participation and involvement in anything at all, is a headwind that faces not only religion, but organized activities in the U.S. in general.
This data may provide a nice opportunity to revisit our individual and family priorities as reflected not simply in generalized commitments — but also in the actual, concrete ways we each choose to spend our time, day by day.
After acknowledging the “circumstances beyond our control” we all face in our lives, President Russell M. Nelson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reminded us in 2021 that “there are many things we can control. We set our own priorities and determine how we use our energy, time, and means.”
He then cautioned that “If most of the information you get comes from social or other media, your ability to hear the whisperings of the Spirit will be diminished” — pleading with listeners repeatedly to be “making time for the Lord in your life — each and every day.”
An increase in the amount of time invested in faith each day seems very doable for most people, based on the sheer data alone — since there is so little time spent on God in the first place. But on a practical level, the habits and patterns in any of our lives can take on a momentum that feels very difficult to resist.
We’re still in the driver’s seat, though. No one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to turn on Netflix tonight. So, maybe try experimenting with changing things up a little.
Push back on the ceaseless distraction. And make a little more time and space to contemplate the meaning of it all — reaching inward, outward and upward for guidance, comfort and love as you need.
Like leaven in the loaf, even small amounts of authentic spiritual seeking (hopefully more than 2.4 minutes a day!) can reverberate and ripple in wonderful ways throughout every other part of life.
Bombarded with outside media as we so often are, these moments of calm, spiritual contemplation are needed now more than ever.