Why Is Everyone Watching TV With The Subtitles On?

No, it's not just you. The rise of "always-oners" (people who use subtitles for everything they watch) is causing a "war" in homes across America according to writer Devin Gordon in a piece for The Atlantic. He writes:

"... a Great Subtitle War. On one side: the bombastic visual effects of post-Game of Thrones mega-budget TV. On the other side: hearing the words. On one side: people like me, the purists and refuseniks. On the other: our friends and spouses, people who just want to follow the plot."

Yet the real reason subtitles feel so necessary on TV might be because the dialogue actually is less audible than it once was. When AT&T bought HBO's parent company in 2018, they used a new "loudness spec" which set the volume based on the loudest point, not on the dialogue itself. Netflix still uses a "dialogue-anchor spec," while Amazon has a "dialogue boost" feature and Roku offers an "automatic speech clarity" feature.

Whether or not you want them probably comes down to how interruptive you find them. Sadly, there is still no feature that would allow you to customize the fonts or design of the subtitles to make them less jarring. I admit I use them for most shows, but when watching live sports, they are always in the way. As one show creator put it: "following the story is the most important thing ... if you’re getting knocked out of the story because you can’t follow the dialogue, then by all means turn on the subtitles. It’s fine."