Subtitles become multitasking lifeline for younger viewers, poll finds

A new AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll shows subtitles are widely used, especially by younger viewers. About four in 10 adults under 45 say they use subtitles often when watching TV or movies, compared with roughly three in 10 adults 45 and older. People aged 60 and up are most likely to say they never use subtitles. The poll also points to reasons tied to environment and listening, with younger viewers more likely to turn on captions to cope with background noise and multitasking.

Beyond age, the survey tracks motivations behind caption use. About 55% of subtitle users say they enable captions to catch every word, while roughly 40% cite difficulty understanding accents or watching a foreign program. About 3 in 10 say they use captions in a noisy environment, and roughly a quarter say they rely on captions because the audio quality is poor. The poll notes that younger adults are more likely to turn on captions in noisy environments or while multitasking, while older users are more likely to cite accent difficulties or hearing impairment.

Taylor Heine, 35, of Johnson City, Tennessee, is among those who use captions to multitask. She says she watches with subtitles on because she might be on her phone, caring for her animals, or cleaning, and the captions help her switch back and forth without missing important dialogue. “That way I can kind of switch back and forth, be able to listen to it or look back at the screen and I know what’s going on,” she says. It also helps her fiancé, she adds, because subtitles reduce the need to blast the TV while he’s in the kitchen.

David Barber, a sound editor and president of the Motion Picture Sound Editors, says part of the trend is cultural. “What the younger kids are doing is, a lot of them will multitask. They’ll listen to music while they’re watching a show. So they’re catching bits and pieces of this, bits and pieces of that. I think they probably are half-listening and half-watching,” Barber says.

Ariaunna Davis, 21, of Tampa, Florida, says she typically uses subtitles if she cannot hear the audio well or cannot understand a character’s accent. “If I want to know most of the words that are being said and the audio’s a bit iffy, then that’s the moment I’ll mostly use captions,” she says.

Adrian Alaniz, 31, of Midland, Texas, says subtitles help him when his hearing has been affected by earlier concerts. “With subtitles, he can be sure he is understanding what is going on, particularly if he is eating something crunchy like a bag of chips.” He notes that subtitles can assist with translation in animated programs and that sometimes the dubbed audio and subtitles do not match. “Sometimes the audio doesn’t come across as clearly and the subtitles do help in that matter,” he says.

Davis points to the show “Game of Thrones” as an example where captions help. “A lot of times the speaking in that show is low and fits the dark environment,” she explains. “Then the next scene will be just music and it's blasting through the walls.”

About one-quarter of subtitle users say they turn on captions because they are watching while multitasking. Fewer cite a hearing impairment, trying to learn a new language, or watching with the sound off as primary reasons.

Young adults who have used subtitles are more likely than those 45 and older to say they do this because they are watching in a noisy environment or multitasking. Older subtitle users — those 45 and older — are more likely than younger adults to say they use closed captions because they have difficulty understanding accents or because of a hearing impairment. About 3 in 10 adults 60 and older who use subtitles say they use closed captions because of a hearing impairment, compared with only 7% for younger adults.

Patricia Gill, 67, of Columbus, Tennessee, does not use closed captions. But when her grandson comes over, Gill often notices he has subtitles on his phone when watching movies. “He’s a typical almost-teenager, he just likes watching his phone,” she says. The two have different approaches when it comes to subtitles. If she is interested in a show and misses an important line, she goes back and rewinds it. “I’m old school,” she says. “I just like the regular, basic stuff.”

___ Sanders reported from Washington. AP Polling Editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report. ___ The AP-NORC poll of 1,182 adults was conducted Aug. 21-25, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.