Americans Forgot How To Have Fun, And Screens Are Winning

Ultimize. According to a new Study Finds story on a Talker Research survey, which was commissioned by Dave Buster's, 48% of Americans say their lives are lacking in fun. Fun. But the statistic that jumps off the page is not just that people are fun-starved, it's what they call fun. The number one answer at 77% was watching TV. Not playing basketball, not taking a walk, not seeing friends, not getting outside, but watching TV. That's the whole problem in one depressing little statistic. We're not lacking fun because the universe hit all the fun suddenly. We're lacking fun because we redefine fun as sitting motionless in front of a screen until bedtime. And yeah, I understand TV can be wonderful. I'm not here to pretend I never watch television. I watch it now. As a kid, I watched so many episodes of Gilligan's Island that my parents could not get me to come to dinner unless they called me Little Buddy. That was Gilligan's nickname. But let's be honest, are those the parts of childhood I remember most? No. I remember going on Boy Scout camping trips with my dad. I remember playing Little League basketball. I remember my mom serving as den mother at my Cub Scout troop. Now, granted, I had an exceptionally lucky childhood, and I realize that, but I remember doing things in the real world with real people where my body moved, where something unexpected happened, where there was a story at the end of the day. That's what fun is supposed to be. It's not just anesthesia after work. It's not just numbing yourself until you're too tired to feel disappointed. The study, Finding Peace, reports that nearly half of Americans say they're lacking fun, and 12% can't even remember the last time they had a full free day to enjoy themselves. That's sad. There's just no other way to describe it. It's sad. But the most revealing part is that this top activity people associate with fun is watching television. Outdoor activities were only 50%. Playing games, 48%. Spending time with family and friends came in way, way, way behind watching television, which is something you can do alone and is something you can do on a phone. Now, that tells me this is not just a money problem. It's not just a work problem. It is a deeper culture problem. Now, to be fair, cost matters. The survey found that budget constraints were the number one barrier to fun. At least that's what people thought. I get that if you're broke, exhausted, working two jobs, and your rent just went up again, I'm not going to wag my finger at you and say, why aren't you off learning pickleball or skiing? But for millions of middle-class Americans, the issue is not that there's literally no time. It's that we've built lives for ourselves all the time that are pre-spent. We buy a bigger house further from work because we think we need an extra bedroom for the 3 days a year someone might, might come to visit. Then we spend years commuting, maintaining, heating, cooling, cleaning, furnishing, financing, and worrying about that house. Congratulations, you got the guest bedroom, but the guest is your own misery, and it moved in permanently. Would you like to be the sort of successful person who is dominating news, at least in your industry? Well, if so, it's time to up your skills. At ultimize.com, I've created online courses to help you do that. Now, here's the thing, no obligation. You can get a free course on communication skills, a free course on how to build better habits. All you have to do is go to ultimize.com. That's ultimize.com. Z-E dot com. No obligation. Go there now. Far better for many people to have a smaller place closer to work, closer to parks, closer to friends, closer to life. You don't win at life by having square footage you're too exhausted to enjoy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the average private sector work week is around 34 hours. Now, obviously, full-time workers work more. And many people are working nights, weekends, multiple jobs, and brutal schedules. I'm not denying that. Americans also work more annually than many people in wealthy European countries, especially countries like Germany, France, and the Netherlands. But, and this is a big but, there are 168 hours in the week, not 40, not 50, 168. If you sleep 8 hours a night, That is 56 hours. If you work 40 hours, that still leaves 72 hours. Yeah, I understand you got commutes, chores, childcare, errands. Yes, they all eat away at that. But when people say, I need 17 more hours a week to have fun, a lot of that time, what they really mean is I already spent those 17 hours scrolling, streaming, clicking, browsing, half watching, half living, and calling it recovery. The American Time Use Survey found that watching television is still the biggest leisure activity, taking about 2.6 hours per day and accounting for more than half of all leisure time. 2.6 hours a day, that's more than 18 hours a week. There are your 17 hours right there. They were hiding under the remote control the whole time. And let's update the word TV. For younger people, it may not be television in the old-fashioned sense. It's TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Netflix, sports clips, political rage clips, someone you went to high school with posting vacation photos from a beach you can't afford. It's sitting on the couch, thumb moving, body still, your life evaporating. That's why I think the real rule should be Scroll last, not scroll first. Scroll last. Watch TV last. Don't wake up and immediately hand your brain to billion-dollar companies that have hired the smartest behavioral scientists in the world to make sure you don't look away. Don't come home and collapse into the algorithm before asking, what would actually make tonight memorable? Scroll Last. Fun first. Here's a radical idea. Go for a walk in your neighborhood. It costs nothing. Leave your phone at home. I know it sounds like something from the Amish space program, but try it. Walk around. Notice houses. Notice trees. Notice dogs. Say to someone, hey, cute dog. That's it. That's your opening line. You don't need a TED Talk. You don't need a networking strategy. Just say 'Kiss dog' or 'Nice dog.' Maybe nothing happens. Maybe they smile. Maybe the next time you see them, you say hello again. Maybe 3 months from now, you know an actual neighbor. Maybe 6 months from now, your neighborhood feels less like a shipping address and more like a community. That's fun. That's life. That's how human beings lived before we decided that a glowing rectangle was our best friend, our therapist, our bartender, our babysitter, and our church. And if walking is not your thing, okay, call a friend. Not just like their post, not send a flame emoji, actually call them. Say, let's get together. Let's go for a walk. Let's go to a comedy show. Let's play a game. Let's shoot baskets. Let's do something that will still exist in our memory next week. Because that's the test. Will you remember it? Other than a handful of truly great movies or historic TV moments, how many individual nights of watching TV do you actually remember? How many nights of scrolling do you remember? I'm willing to guess, if you're like I am, almost none of them. They blur together into one giant digital fog. But you remember the camping trip where it rained. I do. You remember the pickup basketball game where you hit the lucky shot. You remember the dinner where everybody laughed so hard somebody almost choked. You remember the walk where your family finally told you what was really going on in their life. Fun is not just pleasure. Fun involves memory. Fun is movement. Fun is connection. Fun is surprise. Fun can be competition. Fun is the opposite of sitting there in silence while Netflix asks, "Are you still watching?" And the truthful answer is, "No, I'm not really watching, and I'm not really living either." That's why leisure has to be treated as one of the major spheres of life. In my personal development courses that I teach, I stress that fun and leisure are not childish extras. They're not what you get to after health, money, work, family, and everything else is perfect. They are a part of life, your fun times. They are a part of relationships. They are a part of mental clarity. They are a part of being a complete human being. If your financial plan is perfect but your life is joyless, guess what? You're not successful. That is a well-funded prison. If your house is big but you never see friends and you never have friends over, that's not the American dream. That's a storage facility with a mortgage. If your evenings are technically free but every single one is surrendered to TV and scrolling, then the problem is not that life gave you no fun. The problem is that Silicon Valley and the entertainment industry trained you to accept the cheapest possible substitute. So yeah, Americans need more fun, but not just more paid entertainment. Not just another arcade— excuse me, Dave Buster's— not another streaming subscription, not another app or another restaurant chain telling you that joy can be purchased in 2-hour blocks with mozzarella sticks. We need better fun. We need active fun. We need social fun. We need physical fun. We need a kind of fun that puts us in the path of other human beings. And the good news is some of it costs nothing. A walk costs nothing. Calling a friend costs nothing if you already have a phone. Playing catch costs nothing. Sitting on a porch with a neighbor costs nothing. Getting a few people together for cards, board games, a hike, a picnic, a pickup game— it costs next to nothing. What it does require is intention. You have to decide that your life is not going to be what's left over after work, commuting, chores, television, and the phone are done chewing on it. You have to decide that fun is not frivolous. You have to decide that memories matter. If you feel like your life is lacking fun, don't start by asking, where can I buy some? Start by asking, where did my time go? When was the last time I moved my body for pleasure? When was the last time I called a friend? When was the last time I did something I actually remember? And most important, am I living my life or am I watching other people pretend to live theirs on a screen? Because fun didn't disappear. We just stopped choosing it first. I'm TJ Walker. This is Filtered. Thanks so much for spending a little time with me today. If you're new to the show, welcome. I am a personal development expert with more than 12 million student enrollments in my courses around the world. And what I do here in this show is I look at a top story in the news, in this case a major news survey, and then I filter it through the lens of personal development skills and communication skills. Those are my areas of expertise. If anything resonated with you, let me know. If you think I'm completely way off base, let me know. You can post comments on whatever platform you're watching this on. And I typically come to you 5 days a week on weeks when I'm not on vacation or major national holidays. I will be taking some breaks soon, but I will be back tomorrow, so I hope to see you tomorrow. Thanks so much. Bye-bye. Ultimize.