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Whether you’re working from your home or an office, your Fridays tend to be special. You might dress more casually and have fewer meetings. And – if you’re like most American professionals – you probably log off your computer earlier than on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays.
Arizona State University labor economist Christos Makridis wanted to see if Fridays have been getting shorter, so he crunched data the government collects about how Americans spend their time. He found that the hours U.S. white-collar workers log on Fridays shrank by 90 minutes from 2019 to 2024.
This doesn’t necessarily mean these employees are shirking their duties. But it is a sign that colleagues are less likely to be working in the same place on the same schedule. Makridis is concerned about that. “When colleagues are rarely online at the same time, small delays can compound and slow collective progress,” he writes.
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It gets lonely if you stick around an office until late afternoon on Fridays.
Dimitri Otis/Stone via Getty Images
Christos Makridis, Arizona State University; Institute for Humane Studies
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