The Real_Living study – carried out by award winning research agency, Sparkler – investigates the degree to which the rise of internet-connected devices has impacted the traditional TV watching living room dynamic, and how people really divide a finite amount of attention between different screens.
The study involved a survey of 1,010 online adults, passive monitoring of the online and app usage of 47 people over 7 days, and an ethnographic study of two households with biometric data in one of the households. It reveals what's really happening in the modern living room by exposing 3 key myths:
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Myth one: The TV screen is the dominant screen in the living room. Connected devices are used as ‘second screens’
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Myth two: The TV content / advertising schedule determines behaviour in the living room
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Myth three: People are multi-tasking and multi-screening
As younger generations get older and technology adoption increases, fragmentation of attention will increase and advertisers should consider how best to communicate in this new environment.
