Two-Thirds of Us Watch TV with Subtitles On at Least Occasionally . . . Including 13% Who Always Do

Chattanooga, Tennessee—(Wise Brother)

Are you someone who doesn’t mind having the subtitles ON . . . or do you find them too distracting?  Well, it sounds like MOST people turn them on occasionally, even if they know the language AND don’t have hearing issues.

In a new survey, 66% of people say they turn their TV subtitles ON at least occasionally . . . with 13% saying they ALWAYS have them on.

There are a lot of reasons people do this, the two most popular are:  “Enhanced comprehension” (27%) and to help understand accents (26%).

That’s like adding subtitles to understand thicker English accents on British shows, or even regional American accents, especially Appalachian, Southern, and South Boston.

22% of people like to have subtitles on in noisy places.  And other reasons include:  Hearing difficulties . . . to avoid disturbing others . . . learning a new language . . . “sound sensitivity” . . . and to make it easier to multi-task.

The reasons people DON’T like subtitles include:  They’re distracting and don’t always match the words being spoken . . . they move too fast or slow . . . they can clutter the screen . . . and they’re “inconvenient to turn on.”

When it comes to watching shows in a different language, subtitles are more than twice as popular as “dubbed” audio.

The survey also had a few other fun stats, like:

8% of us think today’s movies and shows don’t have enough sexy scenes.

Only 37% of us think the sex scenes we see are realistic.

And 43% of us say sex scenes are “rarely” or “never” important to the story.

(YouGov)

Photo by Maria Teneva on Unsplash