Measure of enjoyment

Economics has been categorized as social "science". To be a science, it needs evidence that is universally acknowledged. To provide evidence, economist does 1) mathematical model that is mathematically correct; 2) statistical analysis that is statistically correct, on the topic that economist is interested. As a result, since economics is everything related to human choice and interaction, economist need to describe human behavior mathematically to build up their theory, and make everything to be quantified and measured if they want to do some numerical analysis and find evidence.

Of course this kind of method is subject to be criticized. However, in order to be a convincing subject, it is currently the best way to make a solid foundation for this field.

So here is the example. Two economists is trying to explore the difference between leisure time spent now and a century ago. To apply analytical method, they adopted a "measure of enjoyment" that surveyed among people in 1985:

Enjoyment of Various Activities in 1985
9.3 Sex
9.2 Play sports
9.1 Fishing
9 Art, music
8.9 Bars, lounges
8.8 Play with kids, hug and kiss
8.6 Talk/read to kids
8.5 Sleep, church, attend movies
8.3 Read, walk
8.2 Work break, meals out, visit
8 Talk with family...(see the rest in the paper)

Hat tip to Hal Varian. In his article he is intended to discuss the main finding from the paper above, that our leisure time, comparing to a century ago, has not varied too much. The main reason is, comparing to our ancestor, we do have less time on work but we spend more time on school instead. Is that mean we have more or less leisure, given we may have more fun in school? That's the reason why we need above measures to define leisure in an analytical way.