Worried Americans Close Door on Outside World
If you telephone friends some evening this week, there is a much better chance than there was, say, a few months ago, that they’ll be home.
As perhaps never before, Americans have become couch potatoes.
This finding comes from an outfit that actually checked the whereabouts of Americans by calling about 4,000 households in the last month. And in one of those weeks, it found only 9.9% of household heads were not at home.
Albert Sindlinger, whose firmmade the calls, said the percentage is the highest that he has found in 36 years of market testing. For comparison, nearly a third of breadwinners were out somewhere last Labor Day weekend.
The findings correlate with and explain the complaints of retail merchants, car makers, airlines and others that customers just can’t be found. Staying home has become an “in” thing everywhere.
There is great commercial significance in the percentages. If 90.1% of household heads--they’re the ones with the money--are at home, then 141.62 million of them aren’t shopping, dining, traveling or negotiating for a car.
It is true that during this time of year Americans tend to spend more time at home, if only because of bad weather and the need to pay Christmas bills. But this year, two other factors--war and recession--have been added.
The record at-home period was the one in which the war began. From Jan. 17 to 21, the number of at-homes suddenly rose by more than 20 million heads of households, Sindlinger said from his office in Media, Pa., where Sindlinger & Co. staff have been calling homes every day since 1955.
Since that record week, the at-home percentages have dropped, but only to a range in the upper 80s, much higher than normal, and there are few indications that they will be back to normal soon.
COUCH SPUD FACTS
Sindlinger & Co.’s insights into the American family:
More people are home on Monday nights than on other weekdays.
Sunday is the most docile night of all.
Friday and Saturday are the evenings on which the most people are outside the home.
Friday and Saturday are also the days when most arguments occur.
