Cultural Organizations and Changing Leisure Trends

National Arts Strategies and the Getty Leadership Institute, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 800, Los Angeles, CA 90049, 310-440-6300, www.getty.edu

Download PDF: www..artstrategies.org

In May 2007, National Arts Strategies and the Getty Leadership Institute convened a meeting of leaders from the arts, entertainment, commerce, and academia to examine the ways people in the U.S. used leisure time. The meeting focused both on the current changes in use of leisure time and looked at future scenarios.

The report found that the average American has five to six more hours of leisure time per week than that of his or her counterpart in 1965. Despite having more leisure, however, Americans are feeling more depressed and anxious. The report states that lunch hours are shrinking to thirty minutes, and multi-tasking has come to define American life. Forty-five percent of teens in the U.S. engage in multiple simultaneous instant messaging conversations as part of their online life, and a large portion of television viewing is back-ground to other tasks. The report also finds that Americans are spending more time alone