Just ask anyone under 40.
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A year or two ago, I was watching a movie with my teenaged granddaughter.
She turned on “closed captions” to “hear” the dialogue more clearly.
Holy cow … I didn’t know you could do that.
And, I assumed that only some of us seniors had trouble understanding TV dialogue.
Now, as the WSJ puts it:
Closed captions—which display text in the same language as the original audio—have been crucial for a long time for many people with hearing loss.
They’re now a must-have for plenty of people without hearing loss, too, helping them better understand the audio or allowing them to multitask.
More specifically:
In a May survey of about 1,200 Americans:
70% of adult Gen Z respondents (ages 18 to 25) and 53% of millennials (26 to 41) said they watch content with text most of the time.
That’s compared with slightly more than a third of older respondents Source
Among the reasons “legitimizing” captions (beyond hearing loss) are:
- Separate dialogue from background noise and music
- “Decipher” accents or muttered dialogue.
- Avoid disturbing others (at home or at work)
- “Enjoy” discrepancies between the captions and the voiced dialogue
- Facilitate multi-tasking (e.g. carrying on a conversation while watching a show)
Bottom line: Captions can add to a viewing experience whether you’re young or old … and are now “de-stigmatized” for aging hearing loss deniers”.
Right on!
The Homa Files 