Open your newspaper or look online, and hardly a day goes by in which some new CNN or Bloomberg poll isn't measuring some aspect of American life. How much time do we spend watching TV? Or exercising? Or intending to exercise as we watch TV? Nearly every aspect of our lives is polled and measured and evaluated, and if the polls are to be believed, we are a nation of people who say they never have enough time to do the things that they want and yet who seem to be able to have the TV set on eight hours a day.
Hobbies in general, and philately in particular, are so small a part of most people's lives that they never even seem to be asked about by pollsters. Hobby websites that ask readers to participate in polls report that average hobbyists spend about five hours per week on their hobby. But these are not careful polls