What Are We Not Doing When We
[READ IN FULL AT SOURCE, the NBER working-paper PDF: abstract, introduction, crowdout section, Tables 4 and 6 and the conclusions. NOT A PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLE: this is a working paper, later published as a chapter in an NBER volume on the digital economy, and the working paper is the document that was read] Wallsten, S. (2013). 'What Are We Not Doing When We're Online?' NBER Working Paper No. 19549, October 2013. JEL J22, L86, L96. SOLE AUTHOR, Technology Policy Institute, confirmed on the title page. THE ONLY PAPER THIS PASS FOUND THAT ESTIMATES SUBSTITUTION RATES DIRECTLY. Design: American Time Use Survey diaries for 2003 to 2011, built into a person-level dataset of about 124,000 observations. His abstract, verbatim: 'on the margin, each minute of online leisure time is correlated with 0.29 fewer minutes on all other types of leisure, with about half of that coming from time spent watching TV and video, 0.05 minutes from (offline) socializing, 0.04 minutes from relaxing and thinking, and the balance from time spent at parties, attending cultural events, and listening to the radio. Each minute of online leisure is also correlated with 0.27 fewer minutes working, 0.12 fewer minutes sleeping, 0.10 fewer minutes in travel time, 0.07 fewer minutes in household activities, and 0.06 fewer minutes in educational activities.' Table 4, major categories: leisure excluding computer minus 0.293, significant at the one per cent level. Table 6, leisure subcategories, all significant at the one per cent level unless noted: television and film, non-religious, minus 0.12; socialising and communicating, minus 0.054; relaxing and thinking, minus 0.037; parties, minus 0.016; attending cultural events and institutions, minus 0.010; listening to the radio, minus 0.0044. NOT SIGNIFICANT: religious television and film, other leisure, waiting associated with leisure, smoking, writing, and listening to music other than radio. POSITIVE AND SIGNIFICANT: hobbies, plus 0.0036, which he notes is less trivial than it looks because Americans average about two minutes a day on hobbies. HIS OWN SUMMARY OF THE SOCIAL SIDE, verbatim: 'these results based on ATUS data suggest that a cost of online activity is less time spent with other people', reached by pointing at socialising, parties and cultural events together rather than at one coefficient. HIS OWN CAUSAL HEDGE, verbatim: 'With the available data, this paper does not evaluate which online activities substitute or complement offline activities. Instead, it estimates the opportunity cost of online leisure time.' SCALE CAVEAT: the Bureau of Labor Statistics summary of the paper puts leisure time online at roughly 13 minutes a day in 2011 against about five hours of total daily leisure, so these are marginal rates and not daily totals, and multiplying them by a modern screen-time figure would be a fabrication. READING: he codes reading for personal interest separately as activity code 120312 and discusses it in the measurement section, but it does not appear among the Table 6 subcategory results, so the paper supports no claim about reading in either direction. His framing device is Robert Fogel on railroads: the true net benefit of an innovation is what it adds beyond the value of what it displaced. ONE FIGURE IS WITHHELD FROM THIS SUMMARY ON INSTRUCTION FROM THE FACT FILE, an age-disaggregated coefficient that is an adolescent outcome and belongs to another article.
[READ IN FULL AT SOURCE, the NBER working-paper PDF: abstract, introduction, crowdout section, Tables 4 and 6 and the conclusions. NOT A PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLE: this is a working paper, later published as a chapter in an NBER volume on the digital economy, and the working paper is the document that was read] Wallsten, S. (2013). 'What Are We Not Doing When We're Online?' NBER Working Paper No. 19549, October 2013. JEL J22, L86, L96. SOLE AUTHOR, Technology Policy Institute, confirmed on the title page. THE ONLY PAPER THIS PASS FOUND THAT ESTIMATES SUBSTITUTION RATES DIRECTLY. Design: American Time Use Survey diaries for 2003 to 2011, built into a person-level dataset of about 124,000 observations. His abstract, verbatim: 'on the margin, each minute of online leisure time is correlated with 0.29 fewer minutes on all other types of leisure, with about half of that coming from time spent watching TV and video, 0.05 minutes from (offline) socializing, 0.04 minutes from relaxing and thinking, and the balance from time spent at parties, attending cultural events, and listening to the radio. Each minute of online leisure is also correlated with 0.27 fewer minutes working, 0.12 fewer minutes sleeping, 0.10 fewer minutes in travel time, 0.07 fewer minutes in household activities, and 0.06 fewer minutes in educational activities.' Table 4, major categories: leisure excluding computer minus 0.293, significant at the one per cent level. Table 6, leisure subcategories, all significant at the one per cent level unless noted: television and film, non-religious, minus 0.12; socialising and communicating, minus 0.054; relaxing and thinking, minus 0.037; parties, minus 0.016; attending cultural events and institutions, minus 0.010; listening to the radio, minus 0.0044. NOT SIGNIFICANT: religious television and film, other leisure, waiting associated with leisure, smoking, writing, and listening to music other than radio. POSITIVE AND SIGNIFICANT: hobbies, plus 0.0036, which he notes is less trivial than it looks because Americans average about two minutes a day on hobbies. HIS OWN SUMMARY OF THE SOCIAL SIDE, verbatim: 'these results based on ATUS data suggest that a cost of online activity is less time spent with other people', reached by pointing at socialising, parties and cultural events together rather than at one coefficient. HIS OWN CAUSAL HEDGE, verbatim: 'With the available data, this paper does not evaluate which online activities substitute or complement offline activities. Instead, it estimates the opportunity cost of online leisure time.' SCALE CAVEAT: the Bureau of Labor Statistics summary of the paper puts leisure time online at roughly 13 minutes a day in 2011 against about five hours of total daily leisure, so these are marginal rates and not daily totals, and multiplying them by a modern screen-time figure would be a fabrication. READING: he codes reading for personal interest separately as activity code 120312 and discusses it in the measurement section, but it does not appear among the Table 6 subcategory results, so the paper supports no claim about reading in either direction. His framing device is Robert Fogel on railroads: the true net benefit of an innovation is what it adds beyond the value of what it displaced. ONE FIGURE IS WITHHELD FROM THIS SUMMARY ON INSTRUCTION FROM THE FACT FILE, an age-disaggregated coefficient that is an adolescent outcome and belongs to another article.
Written from the rEAD IN FULL AT SOURCE, the NBER working-paper PDF: abstract, introduction, crowdout section, Tables 4 and 6 and the conclusions. NOT A PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLE: this is a working paper, later published as a chapter in an NBER volume on the digital economy, and the working paper is the document that was read.
What our sources record
Recorded when this source was checked, figures included, with page references and quotation marks removed.
Wallsten, S. (2013). 'What Are We Not Doing When We're Online?' NBER Working Paper No. 19549