Nearly three-quarters (73%) of US consumers and nearly 90% of millennials have watched binged video content, according to the findings of Deloitte’s 11th Digital Democracy Study.
Furthermore, almost 40% of millennial and Gen Z binge watchers do so weekly and they watch an average of six hours, or five hours of content, in a single sitting.
The study found that the device of choice for key demographics remains split: Gen Z and millennials spend about half their time watching television shows and movies on devices other than a TV. Additionally, Gen X favours the TV by over 60% and Baby Boomers watch over 80% of programming on the TV. Also, nearly all (99%) of millennials and Gen Z are multitasking while watching TV, averaging four additional activities, such as texting, browsing the web, using social networks, reading email and online shopping.
Almost half (49%) of US consumers and nearly 60% of Gen Z, millennials and Gen X subscribe to at least one paid streaming video service. However, the survey notes that despite the growth of paid streaming services, US consumers spend more time streaming video via free services (40%) than paid streaming subscriptions (35%).
In terms of advertising, 67% of consumers, and over 70% of Gen Z and millennials, find mobile ads on their phone to be irrelevant. However, 37%of consumers find it valuable to receive location-based ads on their smartphone and use them regularly.
More than 80% of consumers will skip an online video ad if allowed, while almost half (46%) pay more attention to an ad they can skip versus an ad they cannot skip.
Almost half (45%) of millennials use ad-blocking software, with 89% of the group saying their primary reason is to avoid all advertising. In fact, 40% of them also noted use of ad-blocking software on their smartphones.
Online recommendations on social media (27%) are more influential than TV ads (18%) for Gen Z in influencing buying decisions.
The overwhelming majority – 84% of all consumers and over 90% of Gen Z and millennials – are on social networks. Over 50% of Gen Z and millennials use social networks to learn about new TV shows, citing it to be more useful than TV commercials.
A third (33%) of millennials and Gen Z get their news primarily from social media, with 21% saying that TV is still their most popular news platform.
Over 70% of millennials have used social media to interact with corporate customer service in the last year; 71% of those that have used social media to resolve customer service issues believe they will get a better company response because it is public.