More than half of people use captions when they watch TV - here's why

"Do you watch TV with closed captions even though you don't necessarily need them? You're not alone. A new study shows that more than a third of people -- 34% -- either always or often have subtitles on when they watch TV. Another 23% say they use subtitles sometimes, meaning more than half of the population watches TV with captions enabled."

"Adults under the age of 45 are much more likely to use captions than those older than 45. Counting just the 18-44 demographic, 40% of people almost always have subtitles on, and 27% do sometimes. That leaves just 33% of that age range who say they never use captions. I'm just barely in this demo, by the way, and I'm squarely on team captions."

"50% turn on subtitles simply because they want to make sure they catch every word. 40% enable them to understand accents or watch movies and shows in another language. 30% utilize them because they are in a noisy environment. 25% of people blame poor audio quality as the reason they use captions. 25% have captions on because they are multitasking. 13% of people have a hearing impairment that requires captions."

More than a third of people always or often have subtitles on when watching TV, while another 23% use subtitles sometimes, so over half of viewers enable captions. Adults under 45 are notably more likely to use captions: 40% almost always enable subtitles and 27% sometimes, leaving 33% who never use them. Among those 45 and older, 28% always use captions and 18% sometimes, while 53% never use them. Reported reasons for using captions include catching every word (50%), understanding accents or foreign-language content (40%), noisy environments (30%), poor audio quality (25%), multitasking (25%), and hearing impairment (13%).

Read at ZDNET