Did You Know?

I have wondered for some time what my column would be on election day; what was I going to say, how would I feel, what could possibly be interesting to think about after everything that has been said, and will be said in the coming hours?  I don’t know about you, but I am over it.  I am tired of the whole damn thing, and I am tired of people who aggressively, without prompting, make their case for their candidate or diminish someone who sees things differently; it is all too much.

The expectation that Americans will, or better yet must, conform our beliefs and interest to align with those who claim to have figured it all out is silly.  The US is a diverse country, with diverse people, who readily embrace the freedoms we are afforded; our freedoms give us the ability to pursue our interest unencumbered by others; and aren’t we glad about that.

I did some light research to see if I could understand Americans; this is not demographic data; I was not seeking out who we are, I was more interested in what we do; call it behavior, over labels.

To establish a baseline, I thought I would offer some macro stats, for starters, as of yesterday, there are 346,058,186 people living in the US; we add one person to our population every twenty-two seconds; there is a birth in this country every nine seconds, a death every twenty seconds and an immigrant arriving every thirty-two seconds.  The median age in the country is thirty-eight; eighty-two percent of US citizens live in urban settings, and there are ninety-eight people per square mile in the US.

Now to how Americans spend their time.  Seventy million Americans bowl during the year, while only twenty-six million play golf annually.  Twenty-two thousand people curl for fun, while over one million three hundred thousand people play badminton. 

Ninety-six million people are considered bird watchers; these are people that track, watch, photograph or feed birds regularly.  Over sixty-one million people participate in hiking each year, while over forty-three million people ride their bikes on the road with another eight million bikers enjoying mountain biking.  There are over eight million registered motorcycles in the US, with California leading the way with the most registrants.

Reading is popular in the US with just under eighty percent of the population reading something every day.  However, we don’t read much; the average amount of time we spend reading is fifteen minutes a day.  Of note, slightly over twenty percent of the US population is illiterate; fifty-four percent of the US population reads below the sixth-grade level.  Writing is popular, with poetry being the top thing people write for fun.  Over forty million people actively write poetry for pleasure.  There are approximately forty-nine thousand Americans who self-describe as a writer. 

Fifty-seven million people fish; over seventy million people play chess, and twenty million people play basketball a few times a month. 

Seventy-six million people consider apparel shopping to be a hobby, while over eight million people regularly watch the home shopping network.

One and half million people watch Fox News daily, while a little more than a half a million people watch CNN every day.  Small numbers, given their outsized influence; however, it pales in comparison to Facebook.  Facebook has over two-hundred forty-six million users in the US; two-thirds of them log into Facebook each day with each spending on average thirty-one minutes active on the site.  People spend twice as much time on Facebook as they read. 

Twenty-one percent of Americans go to church once a week.  Sixty-six percent of the country identifies as Christian, four percent as atheist. 

Twenty-three percent of the US population is involved in charitable activity on a weekly basis.  Eleven percent of citizens say they sometimes or always cheat on their taxes.  In 2021, twenty-one percent of respondents admitted cheating on their spouse. Roughly eleven percent of the population watches pornography daily.

And finally, nineteen percent of Americans work on puzzles weekly, forty-one percent describe cooking as a hobby, and over fifty-eight percent say gardening is a hobby. 

I could go on, obviously we are busy and have lots of things that interest us.  Not everything is for everyone; we are made differently and are blessed to be able to choose what we want to pursue.  Some of it is healthy, some of it, not so much, but as I use to say all the time, “it is what it is.”

It is amazing to me, in a country so diverse with varied interests and backgrounds, we coalesce together and co-exist.  I think it is a blessing; I know there are those who don’t see it that way, there are some who want people to see the world exactly as they see it and act dutifully; what a sad way to think.

On this fine first Tuesday in November, millions of people with countless combinations of interest are tasked with voting for one person, out of two, to lead our country.  God bless us all.