It Takes More Time To Party Than It Does To Study

The USA Today is reporting that:
Nearly half of college freshmen who drink alcohol spend more time drinking each week than they do studying, suggests a survey involving more than 30,000 first-year students on 76 campuses who took an online alcohol education course last fall.

Students who said they had at least one drink in the past 14 days spent an average 10.2 hours a week drinking, and averaged about 8.4 hours a week studying, according to findings being presented today at a conference in Seattle for campus student affairs officials. Nearly 70% of respondents (20,801 students) said they drank. Of those, 49.4% spent more time drinking than studying. 

Actually, drinking was the most time consuming thing these kids did.  Here is how they spent their time:

1. Drinking- 10.2 hours/week
2. Studying- 8.4 hours/week
3. Exercising- 5 hours/week
4. Online Social Networking- 4.1 hours/week (that's fancy talk for checking out hotties on Facebook).
5. Social Networking- 2.5 hours/week (that's fancy talk for checking out hotties on campus).
6. Working for Pay- 2.2 hours week 

I'm not really surprised by the drinking numbers.  If you go out on Friday and Saturday night, you're bound to rack up 10 party hours a week.  And hell, as long as you get good grades, who cares, it's your liver.  The 8.4 hours a week studying is a little disconcerting, but oh well, if kids can get by on only 8.4 hours of studying a week, let 'em.

The most interesting numbers shown in this survey, however, are those that don't show up at all.  All of the 6 activities listed in the survey only add up to about 32 hours.  In general, people are awake 16 hours of each day, or 112 hours each week.  So if we take away the 32 hours that the freshmen reported boozing/studying/exercising/networking/working we are left with 80 hours.  That's 5 days of missing time every week.

We have a mystery here.  What are 50% of freshman doing with these 80 unaccounted for hours?  ALONE none-the-less, because social networking was already counted.  Here are my hypotheses:

• Eating- hence the freshman 15.
• Smoking Dope- explains why freshman walk around looking so confused.
• Sex- it seems probable enough, not sure if it falls under social networking though...
• General Bullshitting- this includes movies, reading, talking on the phone, and looking at dumb websites such as this.
• Class

Personally, I think it might be a depraved cycle of all 5 of the activities combined.  Example: a dude goes to class-1 hour.  The dude smokes dope after class- 1 hour.  The dude gets hungry after he smokes dope, so the dude eats- 1 hour.  Sixteen bowls of Coco Puffs later, the dude wants a lady friend.  The dude calls up a lady friend and they have sex- 1 hour.  Awkward post sex cuddling while the dude and his lady friend watch a movie (NO TALKING, that would be social networking)- 2 hours.  Repeat the cycle for 80 hours, add eight hours of sleep every 16 hours.

It seems feasible to me.