The given graph illustrates leisure activities of the elderly people in the USA over the period from 1980s to 2010s.
Overall, it is clear that while in the initial period the most popular activity was watching TV, in the last period hiking took its place. In comparison with other activities, hiking and surfing the Internet were the only types of pastime increasing constantly.
Starting from the least attended activities in the beginning of the period, hiking and surfing the Internet had 20% and nearly 5% of American elderly interested in these activities. In the 2000s, the percentage of people interested in hiking in the US grew rapidly, achieving 60% and becoming the second most popular activity, whereas the proportion of surfing the Internet went up to approximately 15% and still remained as the least preferable activity. 50% and 80% of elderly individuals in the US were interested in spending their time surfing the Internet and hiking in the last decade.
As regards most popular activities, watching TV, theatre, and reading experienced fluctuating changes in the popularity among US elderly, rising to 70%, decreasing to 30%, and dropping to 20% over the period from 1980s to 2000s. In the 2010s, despite the decrease in the popularity of watching TV to nearly 63%, this activity still finished as the second most preferable pastime, whereas the percentage of elderly interested in reading in the US rose by 40%, and this change was almost 5 times larger than that of theatre’s.