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Second-screen viewing: Netflix succumbs to the dictatorship of the smartphone

Enrique Dans
Enrique Dans
Published in
2 min readJan 26, 2025
IMAGE: An illustration with a person watching TV from a sofa but also checking social networks on a smartphone at the same time
IMAGE: Grok

An interesting article in Fast Company, “Netflix knows you’re looking at your phone — and it’s changing how shows get made because of it”, explains the steady change in how we watch television: more and more of us are now simultaneously looking at our smartphone, or second-screen viewing as it’s known in the industry.

It seems the vast majority of people are constantly checking their smartphone while watching television. In response, Netflix is introducing changes to some of its series to optimize them for background viewing, with characters practically announcing what they are doing so that viewers who are only half watching while looking at their smartphone can keep up.

This is already the case with sports viewing, which for long periods can be monotonous camera shots with little action, until the voice inflections of the commentators warn us when we should look up from our other screen so as not to miss the exciting bits.

The rise of “ambient TV” reflects the popularity of television requiring minimal attention or commitment: episodes are independent, so if you missed something in the previous one you can easily move on to the next. The characters don’t so much talk to each other as explain what they’re doing, almost as if they’re reading subtitles, making it…

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Enrique Dans
Enrique Dans

Published in Enrique Dans

On the effects of technology and innovation on people, companies and society (writing in Spanish at enriquedans.com since 2003)

Enrique Dans
Enrique Dans

Written by Enrique Dans

Professor of Innovation at IE Business School and blogger (in English here and in Spanish at enriquedans.com)

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