Activity involvement and time spent on computers for leisure: an econometric analysis on the American Time Use Survey dataset

Internet is capturing more and more of our time each day, and the increasing levels of engagement are mainly due to the use of social media. Time spent on social media is observed in the American Time Use Survey and recorded as leisure time on Personal Computer (PC). In this paper, we extend the traditional analysis of leisure activity participation by including leisure activities that require the use of a PC. We study the substitution effects with both in-home and out-of-home leisure activities and the time budget allocated to each of them. The modeling framework that includes both discrete alternatives and continuous decision variables allow for full correlation across the utility of the alternatives that are all of leisure type and the regressions that model the time allocated to each activity. Results show that there is little substitution effect between leisure with PC and the relative time spent on it, with in-home and out-of-home leisure episodes. Households with more children and full-time workers are more likely to engage in in-home and PC related leisure activities (especially during weekends). Increments in the travel time of social trips result in significant reductions in leisure time during weekdays.