Percentage of chief financial officers who said non-business-related Internet use, including social media, is the greatest time-waster at work, according to a survey from Robert Half Management Resources: 32
Percentage of CFOs who said that chatting with co-workers is the greatest time waster: 27
Percentage who said meetings drain significant time, with the data suggesting this issue is most pronounced at larger firms (more than 1,000 employees), where meetings received 19 percent of the response: 11
Source: Robert Half Technology.
In 2013, percentage of parents who strongly agreed that college was an investment in their child's future, the highest in the six years since the study began, according to a national study from Sallie Mae and Ipsos: 85
Percentage of families that borrow to pay for college: 40
In all, percentage of families that eliminated colleges based on cost at some stage during the research and admissions process, up from 58 percent in 2008: 67
Source: Ipsos Public Affairs.
Percentage of respondents who say a good marriage, someone to come home to at night and a good family life lead to the most happiness over a lifetime, according to a CreditDonkey.com survey: 72
Percentage of respondents who say that prioritizing family and personal time over higher earnings leads to the most happiness in the long run: 38
Source: CreditDonkey.com.
Percentage of the adult smokers who plan to quit to save money, according to a survey conducted for national public health nonprofit Legacy: 37
Percentage who want to quit because they don't want their clothes and hair to smell: 32
Year of the landmark U.S. Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health: 1964
Source: Legacy.
Ratio of single men in their 20s to single women in their 20s, according to a Retail Advertising and Marketing Association survey: 1.2 to 1
Ratio of single men 65 or older to single women 65 or older: 0.33 to 1
Source: NRF.
When asked in early January, percentage of Americans who were looking forward to this year's Super Bowl, according to Pew Research Daily Numbers: 55
When asked, percentage of Americans who said they looked forward to the Winter Olympics: 58
Source: Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
Percentage of all public and private schools that have a uniform policy, according to research by the U.S. Department of Education, the University of Florida and other groups: 23
Annual school uniform sales: $1.3 billion
Average annual cost to parents for school uniforms: $249
Source: Statistic Brain.
Percentage of adults with children younger than 18 who say their family eats dinner together at home six or seven nights a week, according to a Gallup poll: 53
From 2003 to 2008, average number of times per week that U.S. adults reported they eat dinner out at a restaurant, according to Gallup estimates: 1.2 to 1.4
Source: Gallup.
Percentage of Americans 68 and older who say it would be more difficult to start dating than to stay single, according to a Marist Poll sponsored by Home Instead Senior Care: 66
Regardless of age, percentage of Americans who said that if they were to start dating at age 65, the most stressful decision when getting ready for a first date would be what to talk about: 35
Percentage who said where to go: 25
Source: Home Instead Senior Care.
Number of years ago when workplace settings did not include telephones, typewriters, calculators, digital computers and even women, according to Frost & Sullivan's new analysis, Beyond SOHO: The Future of Work: 100
Estimated number of years in the future when today's average work environment will be as foreign to most people as today's work environment would be to someone living a century ago: 10
Source: Frost & Sullivan.
Idle Thought
"Life is like a 10-speed bike: Most of us have gears we never use." -- Charles Schulz, cartoonist
(Readers can contact John MacIntyre at johnmacintyre(at)bwr.eastlink.ca.)