Our spare time is precious. How we unwind says a lot about what we value. With a wide array of pastimes available, respondents in a recent Nielsen global survey were asked to select their top three spare-time activities. While certain activities skew younger than older and vice versa, if you think technology-driven younger people don’t read anymore, think again.
In this third of a five-part series about the differences between how generations live, eat, work and save, we focus on how consumers play.
GENERATION Z PICKS READING AS A TOP SPARE-TIME ACTIVITY
While TV has universal appeal as a favorite spare-time activity among all generations, it turns out that more respondents in Generation Z (ages 15-20) selected reading (27%) as a favorite activity than tuning into their favorite TV programs (23%). In fact, more Gen Z respondents picked reading than reviewing social media (17%) or playing video and online games (17% and 16%, respectively).
Other activities, however, have particular younger or older age skews. When ranked by percentage that picked the activity, listening to music landed as a top three pick for Generation Z (37%) and Millennials (27%), while it fell further down the list for older respondents. Conversely, our desire to explore steadily increases as we age, as traveling was selected by 12% of Generation Z, 18% of Millennials, 22% of Generation X, 22% of Baby Boomers and 25% of Silent Generation respondents. Gardening (22%) was a unique favorite among Silent Generation respondents, putting it in their top-five list of spare-time activities.
