Since COVID-19, Americans are spending nearly an hour less each day outside their homes—a shift that researchers from UCLA suggest will have lasting effects on society. A new study reveals that time spent on out-of-home activities has dropped by about 51 minutes since 2019, along with a 12-minute decline in daily travel.
The findings, based on a survey of 34,000 Americans, show that COVID-19 significantly accelerated a longer-term trend toward more home-based activities, dating back to at least 2003. The researchers, who focus on urban planning, argue that this “stay-home shift” calls for new approaches in city planning and transportation.
Driving vibrancy
They suggest repurposing vacant office and retail spaces, relaxing restrictions on converting commercial buildings to housing, and providing more curb space for delivery services. “Cities can no longer depend on office workers to drive downtown vibrancy; instead, they should focus on attracting residents and visitors with strengths like recreation, culture, and entertainment,” the researchers note. This shift could turn central city areas into hubs of consumption rather than production.
The study also points out benefits of this trend: less travel could mean lower fuel use and emissions, saving people time and money. However, increased isolation and other downsides are a concern.
Using data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), the authors examined both work and leisure from 2019, through the pandemic, and up to 2023, excluding 2020 due to disrupted data collection. In 2019, adults spent an average of 334 minutes per day on out-of-home activities; by 2021, this fell to 271 minutes. Though there was a slight increase by 2023, out-of-home time remains significantly lower than pre-pandemic levels.
Staying home
The trend toward staying home holds even as life returns to “normal.” Home-based activities—including working, exercising, and even shopping online—are taking a larger share of people’s time. Meanwhile, out-of-home activities such as sports events, religious gatherings, and work outside the home have declined, as has the average time spent on daily travel.
Interestingly, while more people shop online, this didn’t add much to in-home shopping time, likely because online purchases are faster than in-store browsing. Exercise and sports have also moved indoors as many invested in home gym equipment, and TV watching saw little increase except at the pandemic’s start.
The researchers conclude that “this retreat into the home” had been developing gradually for years, with out-of-home time decreasing by about 1.8 minutes a day each year between 2003 and 2019, but COVID amplified this shift dramatically. As people continue to sleep and stay home more, urban planners may need to keep reshaping cities to better suit a lifestyle increasingly centered on home.
