You Have More Time Than You Think

Trends Like Ride Sharing And Iot Are Giving Consumers More Free Time— And It’s Up To Marketers To Fill It.

- Keith Grossman

Recently, I was taking an Uber while speaking to a colleague on the phone and simultaneously switching between Instagram, news headlines and texting a partner in Singapore on WhatsApp. Ten years ago, these activities did not and could not coexist; today, I can do them all simultaneously.

Most individuals love to think that time is scarce. There are only 24 hours in a day, right? Well, maybe not.

In Activate’s Tech and Media Outlook 2016, there is an interesting statistic derived from data at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nielsen and other leading sources suggesting that the average U.S. employed adult’s daily activity is equivalent to 31 hours and 28 minutes. In other words, the day is now apparently 30 percent longer than it used to be—and this will only continue to increase with the rapidly advancing trends of Internet of Things, the normalization of the “sharing economy,” autonomous vehicles, wearables, automation and artificial intelligence.