If you're feeling a little more worn out and weary at this time of year than usual, it could be because leisure time for American workers decreased by 20 percent this year, according to a Harris Poll Interactive study released this week. The average time Americans spent working in 2008 was 46 hours a week, while the average time spent playing was just 16 hours, according to the poll.

Interestingly enough, although the median time spent working only rose from 45 to 46 hours over the last year, the number of hours spent playing in 2008 demonstrated a four hour drop from 2007, when the median leisure time for working people clocked in at 20 hours a week.

How to explain the missing three hours in this equation? The polling agency posits that the missing three hours were spent in a "nebulous, grey area" which Americans considered neither working nor playing. "As the American economic situation worsened, people who were worried about their jobs spent more time 'just checking in' via computer or wireless device," Harris said. "While our respondents didn't consider this as time spent working, they also didn't count it as leisure time and landing instead in a nebulous grey area." The study results revealed Americans have become more worried this year about appearing expendable to their employers, so they are putting in longer hours on the job and cutting back on downtime. Younger employees were especially likely to be working longer hours.