Read the text. Which country (or countries) does each of the statements refer to? Which are true “all over the world”? a. People are working longer hours than in the past.
b. Watching TV is the most popular leisure time activity.
c. Most people read newspapers regularly.
d. The majority of women work full-time.
e. Women do the main share of the housework.
f. People are eating more and more ready meals and takeaways.
g. The majority of young people have a full-time job by the time they are twenty.
h. Young people these days spend more time socializing than doing homework.
i. Pensioners are more physically active than teenagers.
j. Regular Internet users are often keen on sport as well.
k. The majority of people take part in sport at least once a week.
l. People waste a lot of time at work.

Time, it seems, is what we’re all short of these days. One reason perhaps, why there are thousands of studies every year into how we spend our time and how we could spend it better. Some of the results are startling. Did you know for example…?
· Although people all over the world are working longer and longer hours, we also have more leisure time than ever before.
· After sleeping and working, watching TV is by far the most popular leisure activity the world over. The British watch more TV than any other nation in Europe, but they also read more. The vast majority, eighty-five percent, regularly read newspapers, and fifty-four percent regularly read books.
· Although up to two thirds of modern European women work full-time, they still do the main share of the housework, too. Husbands help in the house more than they did in the past, but in the UK for example, men do an average of just six hours a week compared to their wives, who do over eighteen hours. No wonder that the vast majority of working women in the UK are stressed and exhausted!
· According to the latest research by supermarkets, the average British family spends just eleven minutes preparing the main evening meal, and prefers “ready meals” and takeaways to home-cooked food. Almost half of all families in the UK eat together only once a month or less.
· More than half of young people in the UK have a full-time job by the age of nineteen, but the majority of young Spanish and Italian people do not start full-time work until they are twenty-four.
· The average American fourteen-year-old spends only half an hour a day doing homework, and less than a fifth of young people participate on sports, clubs, music or other traditional hobbies. Instead, sixty-five percent say they spend their time chatting on their mobiles and hanging out with their friends in shopping malls.
· In the UK, pensioners are almost twice as active as teenagers, according to recent research. People over sixty-five spend nearly two hours a day doing physical activities such as walking, cycling, gardening or sport, while teenagers spend only seventy-five minutes. However, surprisingly, people who use the Internet regularly do more sport than people who never use it.
· The Swedes and Finns are the sportiest nationalities in Europe. Seventy-three percent do some kind of sport at least once or twice a week.
· People may spend more time at work these days, but are they always working? The latest research reveals that each day the average British employee spends fifty-five minutes chatting, sixteen minutes flirting, fourteen minutes surfing the Net and nine minutes sending e-mail to friends!