The streaming age has certainly brought a number of benefits for consumers and viewing audiences, not the least of which is the ability to stream top-tier content on demand, anytime, from the comfort of your couch. Streamers like Netflix offer impossibly large libraries of content, with thousands upon thousands of TV shows and movies -- and more added every week, like clockwork.
That abundance, however, also paradoxically presents its own problem: The more content you have at your fingertips, the more difficult it is for people to pick or even just find something to watch. Too much, in other words, isn't always enough.
That's according to the results of a study commissioned by UserTesting and conducted by Talker Research, which found that viewers waste a shocking amount of time trying to find something new to stream. Specifically, the average person is now spending as many as 110 hours per year, or almost five full days, scrolling through the menus of various streaming apps in order to find something to watch (read more about the study here).
Five days might not sound like a lot in the context of a 365-day year. But imagine doing nothing but scrolling through apps like Netflix, Hulu, Max, and Disney+ starting on a Monday and continuing to do so uninterrupted through Friday. “The streaming landscape has evolved from solving the problem of content access to creating a new challenge of content discovery,” Bobby Meixner, Senior Director of Industry Solutions at UserTesting, said in a statement about the study results. You can say that again.
The problem here, as I see it, is really two-fold. In general, every major streaming app offers a subpar user experience when it comes to finding content. Some of them are worse than others, but all of them have their problems. And even if you fix the UX problem, it still doesn't address the second one -- figuring out what's worth your time, in a sea that's filled with both bangers and duds. Netflix, just to pick on one app, doesn't always do a great job of spotlighting its most worthwhile original content, while it pushes dumb new titles on you (like the new Carry-On, which thoroughly disappointed me) for one reason or another.
Long story short, abundance isn't a net good in and of itself. Think of something like Google, which puts the entire internet and our civilization's collective body of knowledge pretty much at your fingertips. And yet, people are dumber than ever these days, no? Bigger, and more, isn't always better.
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We waste a shocking amount of time just trying to find something to watch, new streaming study reveals originally appeared on BGR.com on Mon, 23 Dec 2024 at 18:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
