The pie graphs compare how much time office workers spent on various tasks in 1980 and 2000 in the US. Over this period, computer use has developed into the main activity, surpassing former most time-consuming task – using phones. Furthermore, while unspecified activities and in-person communication remained unaltered, paper documents, meeting and phones had taken much less time by 2000, in contrast to the remaining activities.
The only two activities that were equally participated in both years were uncategorized tasks and face-to-face communication; their figures collectively accounted for 29% of the total time. Paper documents and phone use, however, recorded decreases in the 20-year span. In 1980, office workers used as much as 30% of their time using phones, a figure that shrank to 17% two decades later, thus marking the sharpest fall. The other marked drop was seen in paperwork: its proportion halved to 10% in 2000.
Patterns for the rest of activities were growing, with that of computers doing so the most. In particular, there was a surge in the usage of computers, as the percentage of time spent on it rose fifteen-fold to a chart high of 30%, a stark contrast to the figure for meeting dwindling roughly three-fold to 6%. The final notable change was the introduction of emailing in 2000, which required the least time (8%) in the year.