Why everyone’s using closed captions

I thought I was alone in watching Netflix with closed captions despite not having any hearing impairments. It turns out I’m part of a new majority.

In my case, I follow what someone is saying much more easily if I can see their mouth in my peripheral vision. (I don’t lip-read; my brain puts the sound and vision together at the subconscious level.) When a show cuts away from the actors’ faces, I miss things. Closed captions fill in the gaps. Other people use closed captions so they can eat loud, crunchy snacks without pausing, parse heavily accented dialogue, or just show some respect to their housemates at 3am. People with ADHD say it helps them focus.

Sociologist and interaction designer Sebastian Greger describes the CC renaissance as “a wonderful example of accessibility features benefiting everybody”. He analyses it from a UX design perspective here.