Young adults watch nearly as much television via non-TV devices as they do via traditional television sets, according to a recent Morgan Stanley survey shared with BI Intelligence. Older adults still mostly watch the television.
Morgan Stanley’s survey sampled 2,501 U.S. adults ages 18 and older.
- Respondents between 18 and 29 years old reported spending an average of over 9 hours per week watching television on non-TV devices, including computers, tablets, or smartphones. Viewers typically watch TV content on these devices via services like Netflix and Hulu.
- This age group spent just slightly more time watching the regular television, at 9.8 hours.
- All other age groups surveyed spent much more time watching TV on traditional television sets, compared to watching via non-TV devices; the gap widened for each subsequent age group.
Download the charts and data in Excel.
But all age groups saw significant increases over the past year in time spent watching television on computers, tablets, and smartphones.
- Respondents between 18 and 24 years old increased time spent watching television on non-TV devices by 24% over the previous year. Time spent watching on traditional TV decreased by 4%.
- Time spent watching television on non-TV devices for the 30-to-44 and 45-to-64 age groups increased by 65% and 61%, respectively. Time spent watching the regular TV was flat for both age groups.
- Respondents ages 65 and older showed the largest increase in time spent watching television on non-TV devices, at 88%. Time spent watching on traditional TV increased by just 4%.
