It’s been a growing trend over recent years, particularly on streaming services, for people to watch TV and movies with subtitles despite not being deaf or hard of hearing, and to find out why, The Focus spoke with several industry experts.
According to a study conducted by Netflix, as many as 80% of its subscribers used subtitles (aka closed captions) at least once a month. On top of that, data from Stagetext reveals that younger viewers tend to use subtitles more, with 80% of 18-24-year-olds opting for captions compared to just 23% of 56-75-year-olds despite the older demographic being more likely to suffer from hearing impairments.
Filmmaker explains why people prefer watching TV and movies with subtitles
In an effort to learn more about why viewers are more likely to opt for subtitles, The Focus spoke with filmmaker and screenwriter Neil Chase.
“Personally, I love watching movies and TV with the subtitles on. I’ve been doing it for over ten years now, ever since a friend of mine did it at his place,” explains the filmmaker. “At first I was surprised and a bit distracted, but in the end, I felt like I understood the movie more deeply and I was hooked.”
One of the biggest reasons why subtitle users turn on captions is to boost their understanding of what’s going on in a particular scene and the same can be said for Chase.
“As a screenwriter, the best way for me to study other people’s work is to read the dialogue on the screen as the characters are saying it,” he adds. “This way, I don’t lose any of the dialogue but I can still appreciate the performances of the actors.”
On top of that, modern movies and TV shows are featuring increasingly loud and noisy sound mixes which can often mean that dialogue can potentially fade into the background.
“There is a subset of filmmakers who are increasingly injecting ‘realism’ into their soundscapes,” Neil says. “This includes background noise, loud sounds, and muffled or unclear speech. By other filmmakers, however, it can be a purposeful choice that the audience not clearly understand the dialogue – as a means of creating mystery and tension.”
“The prime example of this is the work of Christopher Nolan in films such as The Dark Knight Rises and Tenet, where audiences had difficulty understanding what certain characters were saying in certain scenes,” says the filmmaker.
Tech expert offers further insight
The Focus also spoke with Brittany Betts, a tech expert at FloridaPanhandle.com.
“From a technology standpoint, I’d say it’s a mixed bag for why people use subtitles,” says Brittany. “Some would argue that you can pay even more attention when you’re hanging on word-for-word with the captions below, others would argue that the subtitles take away from the full-on cinematic experience.”
“In our household, we like to mix up subtitles vs no subtitles pretty frequently,” she adds. “Generally, a show with harder-to-understand accents will always get subtitles, but sometimes we like to have subtitles on for purposes other than that.”
“One of the other reasons is that we have a pretty loud household and having subtitles on can refrain us from getting upset that we missed anything important.”
I’m something of a subtitle user myself
As someone who religiously watches TV shows and movies with subtitles, I firmly agree with the reasons listed above from Neil and Brittany.
Despite not being deaf or hard of hearing, I feel like having text on the screen helps to increase my comprehension of the show I’m watching as I’m less likely to mishear any mumbled or quiet dialogue.
This is especially true when my attention might not be entirely focused on the TV, such as if I’m replying to a message on my phone, in the middle of eating, or have put a show on in the background while I’m working as I can quickly glance at the screen and catch up on any dialogue I missed.
Of course, having subtitles is also essential for the growing number of international shows that are becoming available on the various streaming platforms out there, such as the world-conquering Squid Game.
And with 80% of younger viewers already using subtitles on a regular basis it looks unlikely that the practice will be disappearing any time soon.
