Watching Netflix with captions on has long been a practice in my home, starting with my youngest, who, as a GenZ, explained how streaming with captions on enables the multi-tasking that is so much a part of their lives.
Back when I first learned about this fast-growing habit, I assumed closed captions or subtitles were solely for people with hearing challenges. I knew my child didn’t have any, and when I asked why they were watching Netflix with captions on, they looked at me like I had bananas for arms and told me, “Everyone does it.”
That hyperbole led to some research, discovery, and this post I wrote on Medium. For my daughter and their GenZ cohort, captions helped bridge the distracted divide between the phone in their hands and the best streaming content on their TV. I even spoke to mental health professionals who also noted this was becoming common practice.
As I wrote then, my child tried to explain how captions were more than just an aid to understanding:
“It helps me with my ADHD: I can focus on the words, I catch things I missed, and I never have to go back,” she replied. “And I can text while I watch.”
I got it, but I don’t think I fully understood until I turned on my own Netflix closed captions. There were two shows, in particular, that made me a convert.
First, Call My Agent, a smart French comedy about a Paris-based talent firm. It ran four seasons, and we got hooked, even though we were reading the whole time.
The second show was Peaky Blinders. Now, this show is in English, but the accents from Birmingham, England, were so thick that when we first tried watching, we gave up halfway through the first episode because we couldn’t understand a thing. A few years later, we returned but with captions enabled. That changed everything, and we became huge fans.
One thing, though, about Netflix subtitles has always bothered me: descriptions of sounds.
- “Doorbell rings”
- “People laughing”
- “Sniffling” or “Softly crying”
- “Door slams”
- “Music lightly playing”
- “Music swells”
- “Indistinct chatter”
You get the idea. These audio cues are crucial for the hearing-impaired, but essentially unnecessary for those with full hearing, like me.
Even for GenZers like mine, I don’t think the descriptions of these audio-only moments enhanced their viewing experience and, perhaps, were a bit of a distraction.
Netflix’s decision to finally add an option for subtitles only is long overdue. The adjustment appears now as a new option under Audio: “English” subtitles, as opposed to “English (CC)”.
It’s a small change, I know, but I’m certain my family and I will be using it from now on. At least some of us.
You see, while my youngest watches everything with captions, and my wife increasingly watches almost everything with captions, I still do it less so, and my son never does it and finds them distracting.
If I’m being honest, though, I’m finding that captions are useful in more situations than just foreign language and accent-heavy productions. I can no longer quite pick up what people are saying when they’re speaking softly, whispering, or, as is often the case, mumbling.
Also, sound mixing often overplays sound effects and overwhelms the dialogue. In lieu of a better sound system, a clear caption is an effective solution. And now, without the extraneous text that tells me “loud explosion,” this experience is about to get so much better.
So, thanks, Netflix, for always supporting the hearing-impaired and for now giving us new captioning devotees a sound-effect-free option. I’ll be using it a lot.
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