"Well traditional studies … of time spent at work (do) show a declining work week over time. And so if you took these studies, you would conclude that, yes, people have more leisure or free time. But a new study has just been published that takes a different approach," says Dr. Walden, a North Carolina Cooperative Extension specialist.

"This study defined free or leisure time as only that time after taking account of not only time working but also time going to school, time taking care of your children and the household, and time commuting," he explains. "And interestingly these authors found that after they defined leisure in that way, taking into account of all these other tasks, that the average person today has only about the same leisure time as the average person had back in 1900.

"So free time or leisure time, again defined in this way, has not gone up," he says. "And I think this really goes along with what most people think –- that their free time is very, very precious."