Friends,
I struggle with my hearing. In fact, I’ve dealt with significant hearing loss over the years and have even battled tinnitus. I actually hesitated to write this because I didn't want to inadvertently manifest a tinnitus attack. Fortunately, I’ve learned coping strategies when an attack happens, and surprisingly, it’s been much better living in Colorado. I wonder if altitude plays a role in this? Of course, friends and family believe it's due to the hundred and hundreds of concerts I’ve attended, and to be honest, the Lightning Bolt shows I saw back in the day didn't exactly help. However, I believe my hearing was permanently affected by a severe sinus infection I had many years ago. I tell you all of this because I do not watch a movie or a show without the Closed Captions enabled.
Subtitles have been a game changer for me. I wish I had used them long before my hearing issues started. I have rewatched some of my favorite movies with the subtitles on and was amazed at what I missed. Seriously. Also, subtitles are highly entertaining these days. I’m looking at you Stranger Things.
David Pogue, correspondent for the “Sunday Morning” show on CBS, recently did a segment on subtitles and explored their recent rise in popularity. As you can imagine, this piqued my interest. Pogue reports 55% of Americans use subtitles, with young people being the most popular age group.
In the segment, Pogue spends time with a family, who is not hearing impaired, but has the closed captions enabled on every TV in the house. He also sits down with Oscar-winning sound mixer Tom Fleischman and Jeff Tashige, who wrote the subtitles for Stranger Things, which have gone viral more than once.
There are multiple factors contributing to the spike in popularity. Some examples are background noise, thinner TVs with poor speakers facing backwards, and kids watching shows on their phones silently past their bedtime. I can certainly relate to that last one. I have always been a night owl. As a kid, I would sneak out of my bedroom, hide behind a rocking chair, and watch whatever my parents were watching. Although, this turned out to be a terrible decision the night they watched Burnt Offerings. The hearse driver creeps me out to this day.
Ultimately, the main reason for the increase in usage is that dialogue is simply getting harder to hear. Check out the segment to learn more.
I can’t be the only one who uses subtitles / Closed Captions religiously. Anyone else? Drop me a comment and let me know.
For me it was watching Ted Lasso - I needed help with some of the British accents! (and Jason Sudeikis!). It's on about 50% of the time.
I started using subtitles nearly twenty years ago when my oldest son was a baby. Initially so I wouldn’t wake him up while watching movies. Over the years, I left them on due to my severe hearing loss resulting from 3+ decades of EMS sirens.