96% of Gen Z Americans use subtitles, up from 70% just a year earlier (Preply, America Is Still Obsessed With Subtitles 2023). Captions have crossed from an accessibility feature into a default viewing habit: about one-third of the entire US public always or often watches with subtitles on, climbing to 40% of adults aged 18 to 44 (AP-NORC, Closed Captioning On 2025). In the UK, 79% of viewers now use subtitles at least sometimes, even though 81% report no hearing difficulty (Extreme Reach, Global Accessibility Report 2026). And the behavior is not driven mainly by hearing loss: 80% of people who use captions have no hearing impairment (Verizon Media and Publicis Media, Relationship of Video, Sound and Captions 2019).
This analysis consolidates data from AP-NORC, Preply, Extreme Reach, 3Play Media, the FCC, Ofcom, the NIH, and 12 other primary sources to map who uses captions, why, what the law now requires, and how accurate automatic captions have actually become.
TL;DR
- 96% of Gen Z use subtitles, up from 70% the prior year (Preply, 2023).
- One-third of the US public always or often uses subtitles; 40% among adults 18 to 44 (AP-NORC, 2025).
- 79% of UK viewers use subtitles at least sometimes, despite 81% reporting no hearing difficulty (Extreme Reach, 2026).
- 80% of people who use captions have no hearing impairment (Verizon Media and Publicis Media, 2019).
- 80% of consumers are more likely to watch an entire video when captions are available (Verizon Media and Publicis Media, 2019).
- 98.6% of surveyed students found captions helpful and 75% used them as a learning aid (Oregon State University and 3Play Media, 2016).
- Only 14% of organizations believe auto-captions are fully accessible; 47% use them as a first draft before human review (3Play Media, 2024).
- US federal web accessibility lawsuits hit 3,117 in 2025, up 27.1% year over year (Accessibility Lawsuit Tracker, 2025).
- The European Accessibility Act mandated captions for audiovisual services from June 28, 2025 (European Accessibility Act, 2025).
- 95.5% of UK access-service providers offered subtitles in 2024, up from 89.1% in 2023 (Ofcom, 2024).
- The captioning and subtitling solutions market was valued at 5.84 to 6.7 billion dollars in 2025 depending on scope (Market Research Future / Research and Markets, 2025).
- About 15% of US adults, roughly 37.5 million, report some trouble hearing (NIDCD, most recent available).
1. Mainstream Adoption: How Many People Watch With Captions
Subtitles are no longer a niche accommodation. Across the two largest recent surveys, a majority or near-majority of viewers in the US and UK now keep captions on at least some of the time (Preply, 2023; Extreme Reach, 2026). Streaming has amplified the shift: Netflix reported that 70% of all viewing in 2025 came from members watching titles produced outside their own country, which pushes viewers toward subtitled or dubbed content by default (Netflix, What We Watched: The First Half of 2025).
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Americans who watch with subtitles most of the time | 51% | Preply, 2023 |
| US public that always or often uses subtitles | ~33% | AP-NORC, 2025 |
| UK viewers who use subtitles at least sometimes | 79% | Extreme Reach, 2026 |
| Viewers using subtitles despite no hearing difficulty (5 markets) | 80% | Extreme Reach, 2026 |
| Netflix 2025 viewing from titles outside member’s own country | 70% | Netflix, 2025 |
| Hours watched on Netflix, first half of 2025 | 95B+ | Netflix, 2025 |
| UK viewers who always or often use subtitles for kids/family / movies | 46% / 44% | Extreme Reach, 2026 |
| UK adults/teens who watched non-English VoD content with English subtitles | 76% | Ofcom, 2022 |
Source: AP-NORC, Closed Captioning On: It’s a Generational Thing (2025) and Netflix, What We Watched: The First Half of 2025.
Foreign-language content is a growing driver: as viewers watch more non-domestic titles, subtitled and dubbed viewing rises with it, a market shift our AI dubbing statistics roundup covers in depth.
2. The Generational Divide
Age is the single strongest predictor of caption use. Gen Z sits near-universal at 96%, while Baby Boomers trail at 35% for online video (Preply, 2023). Younger viewers grew up on sound-off social feeds and subtitle-heavy short video, so text-assisted viewing is their baseline rather than an exception (YouGov, 2023). This is a durable behavioral shift, not a temporary trend, which is why platforms increasingly burn captions into video by default.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Gen Z who use subtitles | 96% | Preply, 2023 |
| Millennials / Gen X / Boomers using subtitles for online video | 50% / 44% / 35% | Preply, 2023 |
| US adults under 30 who prefer subtitles on | 63% | YouGov, 2023 |
| US under-30s who keep subtitles on always / most of the time | 23% / 28% | YouGov, 2023 |
| US 30-44 / 45-64 / 65+ who prefer subtitles | 37% / 29% / 30% | YouGov, 2023 |
| US adults 18-44 who always or often use subtitles | 40% | AP-NORC, 2025 |
| UK 18-24-year-olds who use subtitles always or often | 59% | Extreme Reach, 2026 |
Source: YouGov, Most American adults under 30 prefer watching TV with subtitles (2023).
Outlier note: Preply’s 96% Gen Z figure measures any subtitle use, while YouGov’s 63% measures a stated preference, which explains the gap between the two youth numbers.
3. Why Viewers Turn Captions On
The reasons are overwhelmingly practical, not medical. Muddled dialogue is the top complaint: 61% of Americans say background music makes speech harder to hear than it used to be, up from 55% in 2022 (Preply, 2023). Accents, noisy rooms, and multitasking round out the list, and the mix shifts with age: older viewers cite hearing and accents, younger viewers cite environment and divided attention (AP-NORC, 2025).
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Caption users citing difficulty understanding dialogue | 72% | Preply, 2023 |
| Say background music makes dialogue harder to hear (up from 55%) | 61% | Preply, 2023 |
| Use subtitles to better understand accents | 70% | Preply, 2023 |
| AP-NORC users who watch to catch every word | ~50% | AP-NORC, 2025 |
| Use subtitles for accents or foreign-language content | 40% | AP-NORC, 2025 |
| Adults 45+ vs under-45 citing hearing impairment as a reason | 23% vs 4% | AP-NORC, 2025 |
| Under-45 vs 45+ using captions in noisy environments | 40% vs 25% | AP-NORC, 2025 |
| UK viewers citing accent or dialect difficulty | 39% | Extreme Reach, 2026 |
Source: Preply, America Is (Still) Obsessed With Subtitles (2023).
Health note: hearing loss remains a genuine reason for a minority of viewers, and about 15% of US adults report some trouble hearing (NIDCD). If dialogue consistently sounds muffled beyond what captions solve, a hearing check with a qualified audiologist is worthwhile; this article is informational and not medical advice.
4. Sound-Off Viewing and Social-Video Engagement
Captions are now a distribution mechanic, not just an accommodation. 80% of consumers say they are more likely to finish a video when captions are available (Verizon Media and Publicis Media, 2019). On feeds where video autoplays muted, text is often the only channel that reaches the viewer, which is why creators and advertisers increasingly caption everything by default.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| More likely to watch an entire video when captions are present | 80% | Verizon Media and Publicis Media, 2019 |
| View video with sound off in public places | 69% | Verizon Media and Publicis Media, 2019 |
| View video with sound off in private places | 25% | Verizon Media and Publicis Media, 2019 |
| Caption users with no hearing impairment | 80% | Verizon Media and Publicis Media, 2019 |
| Facebook video watched without sound (most recent available) | 85% | Digiday, 2016 |
| Americans using subtitles more on social video (YouTube/TikTok) | 46% | Preply, 2023 |
| Americans using subtitles more on Netflix | 52% | Preply, 2023 |
Source: 3Play Media, Verizon Media and Publicis Media Find Viewers Want Captions (2019 study) and Digiday, 85 percent of Facebook video is watched without sound (2016).
Context note: the Verizon Media and Publicis Media figures come from a 5,616-person US survey and remain the most-cited primary data on sound-off viewing; the Facebook 85% figure is older (2016) and flagged as most recent available. See our video streaming statistics for how muted autoplay reshaped platform design.
5. Captions in Education and Comprehension
Captions measurably help people learn, and not only those with hearing loss. In a study of 2,124 students across 15 institutions, 98.6% found captions helpful and 75% used them as a learning aid (Oregon State University and 3Play Media, 2016). The mechanism is dual coding: reading and listening at the same time improves retention, focus, and recall, which is why captions benefit second-language learners and readers of all ages.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Students who found captions helpful | 98.6% | Oregon State University and 3Play Media, 2016 |
| Students who used captions as a learning aid | 75% | Oregon State University and 3Play Media, 2016 |
| Students surveyed across 15 institutions | 2,124 | Oregon State University and 3Play Media, 2016 |
| Higher scores for caption users vs non-users (USF St. Petersburg) | ~7% | 3Play Media, 2016 |
| Empirical studies documenting caption comprehension benefits | 100+ | NIH, 2015 |
| Organizations captioning at least some content | 90% | 3Play Media, 2024 |
| Organizations with defined caption accuracy standards | 66% | 3Play Media, 2024 |
Source: Oregon State University Ecampus, Students say closed captions, transcripts aid learning (2016) and NIH, Video Captions Benefit Everyone (2015).
The comprehension edge also explains adoption in professional settings; our speech-to-text statistics cover the transcription engines that generate these classroom and meeting captions.
6. Accessibility Law, Regulation, and Litigation
Legal pressure has turned captions from best practice into compliance. US federal web accessibility lawsuits reached 3,117 filings in 2025, up 27.1% year over year, and multimedia without captions is a commonly cited barrier (Accessibility Lawsuit Tracker, 2025). Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic tightened requirements in 2025, and the population served is large: about 37.5 million US adults report some trouble hearing (NIDCD).
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| US adults reporting some trouble hearing | ~15% (37.5M) | NIDCD, most recent available |
| Federal US web accessibility lawsuits in 2025 | 3,117 (+27.1%) | Accessibility Lawsuit Tracker, 2025 |
| US web accessibility lawsuits, first half of 2025 | 2,014 (+37% YoY) | EcomBack, 2025 |
| Top-filing states, H1 2025 (NY / FL / CA) | 637 / 487 / 380 | EcomBack, 2025 |
| FCC penalty ceiling for caption violations | $33,000 per violation per day | FCC |
| EAA compliance deadline for audiovisual services | June 28, 2025 | European Accessibility Act, 2025 |
| UK access-service providers offering subtitles (2024, up from 89.1%) | 95.5% | Ofcom, 2024 |
Source: FCC, Closed Captioning of Internet Video Programming and Ofcom, Television and On-Demand Access Services Report, Jan-Dec 2024.
Captioning intersects with the broader accessibility stack covered in our screen reader statistics; both are frequent targets in the same wave of digital-accessibility litigation.
7. Auto-Caption Accuracy and the Captioning Market
Automatic speech recognition made captions cheap, but not yet fully compliant on its own. In 3Play Media’s benchmark of 8 ASR engines across 205 hours of audio, accuracy for English pre-recorded content is plateauing, with sports audio showing error rates three times higher than the best-performing content (3Play Media, State of ASR 2025). That gap is why human review remains standard, and why the paid captioning market keeps growing.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| ASR engines benchmarked (205 hours, 1.7M words) | 8 | 3Play Media, 2025 |
| Sports-audio error rate vs best-performing content | 3x higher | 3Play Media, 2025 |
| Organizations using auto-captions as a reviewed first draft | 47% | 3Play Media, 2024 |
| Organizations believing auto-captions are fully accessible | 14% | 3Play Media, 2024 |
| Captioning and subtitling solutions market (2025) | $5.84B | Market Research Future, 2025 |
| Captioning and subtitling solutions market (2025 to 2035) | $6.7B to $16.3B (9.4% CAGR) | Research and Markets, 2025 |
| Live captioning market (2025) | ~$1.26B | Global Growth Insights, 2024 |
| AI transcription market (2024 to 2034) | $4.5B to $19.2B (15.6% CAGR) | Market.us, 2024 |
Source: 3Play Media, 2025 State of ASR Report and Market Research Future, Captioning and Subtitling Solution Market.
Divergence note: market sizing varies widely by definition. Market Research Future pegs the 2025 solutions market at 5.84 billion dollars while Research and Markets reports 6.7 billion, and firms disagree on whether transcription and captioning are one market or several. Treat the range, not any single figure, as the signal.
Summary: Captions And Subtitles by the Numbers
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Gen Z who use subtitles (up from 70%) | 96% | Preply, 2023 |
| US public that always or often uses subtitles | ~33% | AP-NORC, 2025 |
| US adults 18-44 who always or often use subtitles | 40% | AP-NORC, 2025 |
| UK viewers using subtitles at least sometimes | 79% | Extreme Reach, 2026 |
| Caption users with no hearing impairment | 80% | Verizon Media and Publicis Media, 2019 |
| More likely to finish a video with captions | 80% | Verizon Media and Publicis Media, 2019 |
| View video with sound off in public | 69% | Verizon Media and Publicis Media, 2019 |
| Facebook video watched without sound (most recent available) | 85% | Digiday, 2016 |
| Students who found captions helpful | 98.6% | Oregon State University and 3Play Media, 2016 |
| Studies documenting caption comprehension benefits | 100+ | NIH, 2015 |
| Say background music makes dialogue harder to hear | 61% | Preply, 2023 |
| Federal US web accessibility lawsuits, 2025 | 3,117 (+27.1%) | Accessibility Lawsuit Tracker, 2025 |
| FCC penalty ceiling for caption violations | $33,000 per day | FCC |
| EAA audiovisual caption deadline | June 28, 2025 | European Accessibility Act, 2025 |
| UK providers offering subtitles (2024) | 95.5% | Ofcom, 2024 |
| Organizations believing auto-captions fully accessible | 14% | 3Play Media, 2024 |
| Captioning and subtitling solutions market (2025) | $5.84B-$6.7B | Market Research Future / Research and Markets, 2025 |
| US adults reporting some trouble hearing | ~15% (37.5M) | NIDCD, most recent available |
| Netflix 2025 viewing from non-domestic titles | 70% | Netflix, 2025 |
Methodology and Sources
Data was gathered by searching for and reading primary reports, government datasets, named-vendor research with disclosed methodology, and peer-reviewed studies published mainly in 2024 through 2026, with older foundational figures flagged as most recent available.
- AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, Closed Captioning On: It’s a Generational Thing (2025), 1,182 adults, August 21-25, 2025 - link
- Preply, America Is (Still) Obsessed With Subtitles (2023), 1,503 US adults - link
- Extreme Reach, Global Accessibility Report (2026), 3,000 consumers across 5 markets - link
- YouGov, Most American adults under 30 prefer watching TV with subtitles (2023) - link
- Verizon Media and Publicis Media, Relationship of Video, Sound and Captions (2019), 5,616 US adults, via 3Play Media - link
- Digiday, 85 percent of Facebook video is watched without sound (2016) - link
- Oregon State University Ecampus and 3Play Media, Student Uses and Perceptions of Closed Captions and Transcripts (2016), 2,124 students - link
- NIH / PMC, Video Captions Benefit Everyone (Gernsbacher, 2015) - link
- 3Play Media, The State of Captioning (2024), 450 respondents - link
- 3Play Media, 2025 State of ASR Report, 8 ASR engines, 205 hours - link
- EcomBack, 2025 Mid-Year ADA Website Accessibility Lawsuit Report - link
- Accessibility Lawsuit Tracker (2025), federal ADA Title III filings - link
- FCC, Closed Captioning of Internet Video Programming (CVAA rules) - link
- European Accessibility Act, caption requirements from June 28, 2025, via 3Play Media - link
- Ofcom, Television and On-Demand Access Services Report, January to December 2024, and Ofcom VoD survey (2022) - link
- NIDCD, Quick Statistics About Hearing - link
- Netflix, What We Watched: The First Half of 2025 - link
- Market Research Future, Captioning and Subtitling Solution Market (2025) - link
- Research and Markets, Captioning and Subtitling Solutions Market (2025) - link
- Global Growth Insights, Live Captioning Market (2024) - link
- Market.us, AI Transcription Market (2024) - link
Data watch: AP-NORC runs monthly polls, so the closed-captioning question may recur in 2026; 3Play Media publishes its State of Captioning and State of ASR reports annually, with 2026 editions expected; Ofcom releases its access-services report each year; the Extreme Reach Global Accessibility Report launches around World Accessibility Day in May; and ADA litigation trackers (EcomBack, Accessibility Lawsuit Tracker) publish mid-year and full-year updates.
Last updated: July 5, 2026. We review and update this page quarterly as new data is published.