I started using them for two reasons: at one place we were living, there was a lot of ambient noise which would sometimes periodically drown out the sound which can make you miss key pieces of dialogue. It's also the case that the large amount of dynamic range in many modern shows/films means that for the loud sounds to be at a reasonable volume, some speech gets almost inaudibly quiet so subtitles help with that.
Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?
51–60 of 738 posts
Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?
#52The other trend I notice is not caring much at all about video quality. If there’s social interaction, young people I know are happy with a low bitrate 720p streamed over discord in a small window. Maybe this is an artifact of videos on phones?
Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?
#53> Captions can also facilitate multitasking I have a hard time believing this. Captions demand more attention if anything. I can passively "watch" a video by only listening to the audio, but I can't passively read. I think that the phenomenon described in the article may actually be a symptom of a much deeper social change. Listening and auditory comprehension were critical skills for communication and preservation o…
I won't pretend I'm fully multitasking, but sometimes I want a comfort show on in the background that I've seen before while I play a game on my phone/iPad. In those cases it's nice to be able to look up and see what was said if you just missed part of it. But I also leave subs on 100% the time I'm normally watching for the obvious reason of not missing anything, it's not just for background TV.
Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?
#54The other trend I notice is not caring much at all about video quality. If there’s social interaction, young people I know are happy with a low bitrate 720p streamed over discord in a small window. Maybe this is an artifact of videos on phones?
This trend is as old as filesharing, probably much older
Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?
#55Also probably because reading something is much faster than listening it. It takes just a second to visually read a sentence that is on the screen, instead of waiting for 2-3 seconds for the actor to actually say it out loud. Probably because we humans recognize words and word groups instead of letters (as how that Oxford study a few years back found out), and that's much faster.
I'd be curious to know how many speed up the videos versus cc it. I know I prefer most videos at faster speeds unless there is a lot of music in it. But cc'ing it with faster speeds is difficult. As a side note, I think the Rings of Power would be way more enjoyable if I could just 2x it. Kind of hoping someone here will say "You can do that, just ..."
I think there will be a trend of content being made specifically with a faster playback speed in mind. I watch my 10 year old son who habitually watches videos at 2x and I can't believe that its not the same for many other kids.
Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?
#56As some one who has CC on all the time if possible, here is the simple reason why I do it: it saves time.
- when I play game, I don't need to restart or rewind if I missed a sentence.
- when I watch movie, similarly, I can capture way more context without having to ask "what did the character say?"
- when I click on a short clip, I can understand without having to turn on and off audio.
It's all about convenience and saving time for me.
Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?
#57Not in that age group but I can't imagine not having cc on. I was hooked when watching anime and foreign movies but even with english movies they only have an upside. You don't have to guess what word they said or how someone's name is spelled. Loud scenes where you can barely hear them is one but also when you have characters that have accents or switch to a different language it helps (you don't get distracted by t…
Subtitles can hurt jokes by spoiling the punchline without the actors timing or delivery. I wonder if delaying joke/punchline subtitles till after the spoken line is complete would improve this
I've thought about this many times as well as it does suck to have it spoiled, especially if there is a long pause in the scene but the subs have been up revealing the joke/jump-scare/etc for a few seconds already. In the end I enjoy subs too much to turn them off for that reason but every time it happens I do wish the "reveal" in the subs was held until the reveal in the scene.
Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?
#58> Captions can also facilitate multitasking I have a hard time believing this. Captions demand more attention if anything. I can passively "watch" a video by only listening to the audio, but I can't passively read. I think that the phenomenon described in the article may actually be a symptom of a much deeper social change. Listening and auditory comprehension were critical skills for communication and preservation o…
It's not so much the verbal aspect rather than the memory aspect. Written instructions are more soothing because you can refer to them verbatim and they stand no risk of being forgotten.
Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?
#59Why don't cinemas have them then? It's because people are listening to shows through terrible audio setups by default
Maybe I need to improve ours!
I have zero problem at movies. But I always watch TV with subcaptions. There’s usually some words that I miss
Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?
#60The other trend I notice is not caring much at all about video quality. If there’s social interaction, young people I know are happy with a low bitrate 720p streamed over discord in a small window. Maybe this is an artifact of videos on phones?
This trend is as old as filesharing, probably much older
Yep, the 12-14" CRT was a fixture in basically every kids bedroom in my childhood and a decade later it was flip top portable dvd players with built in screen. Absolutely garbage picture quality even by the standards of the day, pretty popular because it gave them control and could be shared with friends