Creative hobbies reach well beyond formal art-making. In 2022, 51.8% of U.S. adults created or performed art at least once in the previous 12 months, while 74.8% consumed art through media. Participation also varied by age, education, sex, and race or ethnicity. More recent 2024 time-use data shows how much time participants devoted to arts, crafts, music, writing, and personal-interest learning on days they took part.
Contents
- Overall creative and arts participation
- Participation by sex and race or ethnicity
- Participation by age
- Participation by educational attainment
- Specific creative performances
- Craft fairs and art exhibits
- Time spent on creative hobbies
Overall creative and arts participation
The SPPA Comprehensive Report 2022 from the National Endowment for the Arts measured whether U.S. adults had participated during the previous 12 months. Its broadest measure was creating or performing art: 51.8% of adults did so at least once in 2022. This measure captures a substantial share of everyday creative life, including participation that may happen at home, in a community setting, or through a performance activity.
The same report found that 74.8% of U.S. adults consumed art through media during the 2022 reference period. Reading was also widespread: 53.0% read books or literature at least once in the previous 12 months. These figures describe different kinds of participation, so they should not be added together. A person may create art, read, and consume art through media during the same year.
In-person and learning measures were lower than the broad media measure. In 2022, 47.9% of U.S. adults attended an arts event in person at least once during the previous 12 months. Meanwhile, 29.1% learned an art form, subject, or topic. Together, the figures show several routes into creative everyday living: making, experiencing, attending, and learning.
| 2022 U.S. adult activity | Participation |
|---|---|
| Consumed art through media | 74.8% |
| Read books or literature | 53.0% |
| Created or performed art | 51.8% |
| Attended an arts event in person | 47.9% |
| Learned an art form, subject, or topic | 29.1% |
Source: SPPA Comprehensive Report 2022.
Participation by sex and race or ethnicity
The 2022 SPPA results show a higher rate of reported art creation or performance among U.S. adult women than adult men. The participation rate was 55.0% for women and 48.5% for men. Reading showed a wider difference: 61.6% of adult women read books or literature, compared with 43.9% of adult men.
The report also measured in-person arts-event attendance. In 2022, 50.8% of U.S. adult women attended an arts event in person during the previous 12 months, compared with 44.8% of adult men. These are population-level percentages for the specified groups; they do not describe why people participated or the kinds of creative activities they chose.
Art creation and performance also differed across the racial and ethnic categories reported by the SPPA. In 2022, 45.0% of Hispanic U.S. adults created or performed art. The corresponding figure was 56.0% for non-Hispanic White adults, 40.9% for non-Hispanic Black adults, 48.4% for non-Hispanic Asian adults, and 54.0% for adults in the non-Hispanic Other racial or ethnic category.
Because these categories summarize different populations and experiences, the percentages are best read as descriptive participation measures for 2022. They should not be interpreted as explanations of individual behavior.
Participation by age
Creative participation was highest among the youngest adult age group measured in the 2022 SPPA results. Among U.S. adults ages 18–24, 65.9% created or performed art during the previous 12 months. The rate was 59.4% among adults ages 25–34 and 51.3% among those ages 35–44.
Participation continued at substantial levels among older adults, although the percentages were lower than among the youngest groups. In 2022, 48.1% of adults ages 45–54 and 46.2% of adults ages 55–64 created or performed art. The rate was 47.1% among adults ages 65–74 and 42.1% among adults ages 75 and older.
| U.S. adult age group, 2022 | Created or performed art |
|---|---|
| 18–24 | 65.9% |
| 25–34 | 59.4% |
| 35–44 | 51.3% |
| 45–54 | 48.1% |
| 55–64 | 46.2% |
| 65–74 | 47.1% |
| 75 and older | 42.1% |
Source: SPPA Comprehensive Report 2022.
Learning was especially visible among younger adults. In 2022, 44.8% of U.S. adults ages 18–24 learned an art form, subject, or topic during the previous 12 months. This learning measure is broader than a single class or medium and should be kept distinct from the separate time-use measure for people who took a personal-interest class.
Participation by educational attainment
The 2022 SPPA data shows a stepwise pattern in reported art creation or performance across educational-attainment groups. Among U.S. adults with grade-school education, 31.5% created or performed art. The rate was 40.7% among adults with some high school education and 41.6% among high-school graduates.
Participation was higher among adults with postsecondary education. In 2022, 54.3% of adults with some college education created or performed art, compared with 60.5% of college graduates and 64.1% of adults with graduate-school education. The report also found that 75.5% of adults with graduate-school education read books or literature during the previous 12 months.
These figures concern educational-attainment groups, not the effect of education on creativity. They indicate how reported participation was distributed across the groups in the 2022 U.S. adult population.
Specific creative performances
The SPPA report also provides a more detailed view of in-person performance attendance in 2022. Among U.S. adults, 10.3% attended a live musical during the previous 12 months, making it the largest percentage among the listed specific performance types. Another 21.2% attended another type of live performing-arts event.
Smaller shares attended other named performance categories. In 2022, 6.3% attended a live jazz performance, 4.6% attended a live classical-music performance, and 3.9% attended a live Latin-music performance. The corresponding figures were 4.5% for a live non-musical play, 3.3% for another live dance performance, 1.9% for live ballet, and 0.7% for live opera.
These percentages refer to attending in person at least once in the previous 12 months. They are not estimates of the number of performances attended by each person, and the categories may not represent mutually exclusive audiences.
Craft fairs and art exhibits
Craft fairs and visual-arts festivals attracted different shares across adult age groups in 2022. Participation was 15.8% among U.S. adults ages 18–24, 20.0% among those ages 25–34, and 20.9% among those ages 35–44. It was 16.5% among adults ages 45–54, 15.5% among those ages 55–64, 16.9% among those ages 65–74, and 10.4% among adults ages 75 and older.
The SPPA Comprehensive Report 2022 also measured attendance at an art exhibit by educational attainment. The rate was 2.8% for adults with grade-school education, 4.1% for adults with some high school education, and 4.7% for high-school graduates. It rose to 13.7% for adults with some college education, 22.7% for college graduates, and 28.6% for adults with graduate-school education.
The age results suggest that craft-fair and visual-arts-festival attendance was not concentrated only among the youngest adults. The education results show a wider spread for art-exhibit attendance, with the reported percentage highest among adults with graduate-school education.
Time spent on creative hobbies
Participation rates show whether people took part; time-use data adds a measure of intensity on days when they participated. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report “Baubles, bangles, and beads: time spent on hobbies”, U.S. participants in arts and crafts as a hobby spent an average of 125 minutes on days they participated in 2024.
Other personal-interest activities also occupied substantial time on participation days. In 2024, participants who took a class for personal interest spent an average of 119 minutes. Participants who listened to or played music other than radio spent 103 minutes, while those who researched or did homework for a personal-interest class spent 96 minutes. People who wrote for personal interest spent an average of 95 minutes on days they participated.
The BLS Table A-1 for 2024 uses a broader category: arts and entertainment other than sports. For the U.S. civilian population age 15 and over, this activity occupied 0.05 hours per day, and 2.2% of that population engaged in it on an average day. Among participants, the average was 2.54 hours on days they participated. These are different denominators, so the population average and participant average should not be treated as interchangeable.
For context on home creativity outside the United States, the UK Taking Part Web Panel COVID-19 Report reported results from a web panel during May–July 2020. In July 2020, 42% of UK web-panel respondents said they had done a creative activity at home in the previous four weeks, down from 49% in May. In July, 15% had painted, drawn, printmade, or sculpted during the previous four weeks.
The same July 2020 UK web-panel results reported home creative-activity participation of 50% among women and 32% among men. Among respondents ages 35–44, participation fell from 59% in May 2020 to 40% in July 2020. These UK web-panel figures describe that specific pandemic-era measurement period and should not be presented as current general-population estimates.