How many people have hearing loss?
More than 1.5 billion people, nearly 20% of the world's population, live with some degree of hearing loss, according to the World Health Organization. 430 million of them, over 5% of the world's population, have disabling hearing loss that needs rehabilitation, including 34 million children (WHO fact sheet, March 2026).
WHO expects the numbers to grow. By 2050, nearly 2.5 billion people are projected to have some hearing loss, and more than 700 million, one in ten people, to have disabling hearing loss.
In the United States, 16% of adults had difficulty hearing in 2025, even with hearing aids, according to the CDC's National Health Interview Survey. The share rises steeply with age, from 8.5% of adults aged 18 to 34 to 30.4% of adults 65 and older (CDC), which makes older adults 3.6 times as likely to have difficulty hearing (our calculation). In the UK, RNID says over 18 million people are deaf, have hearing loss or have tinnitus.
Two WHO figures for children. WHO's fact sheet says around 95.1 million children and young people aged 5 to 19 live with hearing loss, while its World Hearing Day 2026 page says around 90 million, citing the 2021 Global Burden of Disease study (WHO World Hearing Day 2026). Both are WHO's own figures; cite whichever page you use.
The U.S. figures quoted most often, 37.5 million adults reporting trouble hearing and one in eight Americans with hearing loss in both ears, come from NIDCD pages that rest on 2011 and 2012 data. The CDC figures above are newer.
How many viewers use captions or subtitles?
About a third of U.S. adults use them regularly. 34% of U.S. adults always or often use closed captions or subtitles when watching TV shows or movies, according to an AP-NORC poll from August 2025. Only 13% of caption users cite hearing impairment as a reason; 55% say they want to catch every word and 39% cite hard-to-understand accents.
Netflix sees the same habit in its data: nearly half of all viewing hours on Netflix in the U.S. happen with subtitles or captions on (Netflix, April 2025).
Survey results vary with who asks. A 2026 survey by XR, an advertising technology company, found nearly half of Americans use captions always or often (XR with MX8 Labs), higher than AP-NORC's 34%. XR sells ad creative services, and its question covered all video, not only TV shows and movies.
Younger viewers use subtitles far more. In YouGov's 2023 polling, 63% of U.S. adults under 30 preferred subtitles on when watching TV in a language they know, against 38% of all adults (YouGov US, 2023). In Britain, 61% of 18- to 24-year-olds preferred subtitles on, against 28% of all adults (YouGov GB, February 2023). XR's 2026 survey put the share of 18- to 24-year-olds who use captions always or often at nearly 60%. In UK research for the charity Stagetext, 54% of people said they use captions or subtitles for TV or online content, and 42% said they use them to help concentrate (Stagetext, 2023).
How much video is watched with the sound off?
The most-cited study is from 2019. 69% of people surveyed by Verizon Media and Publicis Media said they watch videos without sound in public places, and 25% said they do in private places (Verizon Media and Publicis Media, 2019). 50% agreed captions matter because they usually watch with the sound off.
Facebook told advertisers in 2016 that in one study of its video ads, 41% of videos were "basically meaningless without sound" (Facebook for Business, archived). We found no newer platform study with a published method. For short-form video that autoplays muted, captions that carry the message are part of short-form editing, not an extra.
Do captions help viewers understand video?
The research says yes. A peer-reviewed review by psychologist Morton Ann Gernsbacher found that more than 100 empirical studies document that captions improve comprehension of, attention to, and memory for video, for children, students and adults, not only people with hearing loss (Gernsbacher, 2015).
Language access is growing as well. Non-English titles made up more than a third of all viewing on Netflix in the first half of 2026 (Netflix engagement report). YouTube says creators who added multi-language audio tracks saw over 25% of their watch time come from viewers in other languages (YouTube), and that more than 6 million daily viewers watched at least 10 minutes of auto-dubbed video in December 2025 (YouTube).
What do accessibility rules require for captions?
It depends on who publishes the video and where. This is a summary of what regulators state, not legal advice.
| Rule | What it says about captions or video |
|---|
| FCC, 47 CFR 79.4 (U.S.) | Full-length video delivered over the internet must have closed captions if it was shown on U.S. television with captions (published or exhibited on television). The FCC says consumer-generated media such as home videos are not required to be captioned unless shown on TV with captions, and its clip rules do not apply to third party websites or apps (FCC consumer guide). |
| DOJ ADA Title II web rule (U.S. state and local governments) | The technical standard is WCAG 2.1, Level AA, which includes captions. An April 2026 interim final rule moved compliance to April 26, 2027 for governments serving 50,000 people or more and April 26, 2028 for smaller governments and special districts. |
| W3C WCAG 2.2 | Captions for prerecorded video are Success Criterion 1.2.2 at Level A; captions for live video are Success Criterion 1.2.4 at Level AA. |
| Section 508 (U.S. federal agencies) | Federal electronic content must conform to WCAG 2.0 Level A and Level AA. |
| European Accessibility Act (EU) | Applies from 28 June 2025, including to services providing access to audiovisual media services. It does not apply to prerecorded video published before 28 June 2025. |
| Ofcom TV Access Services Code (UK) | Once a channel reaches its 10-year target, subtitles are required on 80% of programmes, 90% for ITV 1 and Channel 4, and 100% for BBC channels. |
Automatic captions help but do not meet the bar on their own. The U.S. government's Section 508 guidance says current auto-captioning technology does not meet the minimum standard for prerecorded media and advises editing them (Section508.gov). YouTube's help center lists 67 languages for automatic captions (our count of its list), and says automatic captions for live streams are available in English only (YouTube Help). Our post on burned-in versus closed captions covers which format fits which platform.
Which popular caption statistics don't hold up?
Caption statistics get repeated for years after the original study, often with the wording changed. We traced six of the most common.
| Popular claim | What the original source says | Status |
|---|
| "85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound" | A May 2016 Digiday article reported that "as much as 85 percent" of video views happen with sound off, according to several publishers and an agency. It was their own data, not Facebook's, from ten years ago. | Old publisher data |
| "Captions increase video views by 40%" | From a 2009 press release by subtitle company PLYmedia. Its trial found subtitles increased the time people spent watching by almost 40%, which is not the same as views (PLYmedia, archived). | Misquoted vendor trial |
| "Viewers are 80% more likely to finish a video with captions" | Two different sources. PLYmedia's 2009 trial said 80% more people watched to the end with subtitles. Verizon Media's 2019 study found 80% of respondents said they are more likely to watch an entire video with captions (Verizon Media and Publicis Media), a stated preference, not a measured increase. | Two sources, often mixed |
| "80% of caption users are not deaf or hard of hearing" | Ofcom's 2006 review estimated about 7.5 million UK adults had used TV subtitles, about 6 million of them without a hearing impairment (Ofcom, archived). That works out to 80% (our calculation), but Ofcom never stated a percentage. AP-NORC's 2025 poll offers a newer comparison: 13% of U.S. caption users cite hearing impairment. | True, but from 2006 |
| "Captions increase watch time by 12%" | Facebook's February 2016 ads post said internal tests showed captioned video ads increased view time by an average of 12% (Facebook for Business, archived). It covered Facebook video ads only, and no method was published. | Dated platform claim |
| "Four in five 18- to 24-year-olds use subtitles" | A 2021 survey commissioned by Stagetext and run by Sapio Research, not YouGov, found 80% of 18- to 24-year-olds use subtitles some or all of the time (Stagetext). YouGov's own 2023 poll put the share who prefer subtitles on at 61%, using a different question. | True, question differs |
A common thread: several of these numbers came from companies that sell captioning or video ads. The figures can still be useful, as long as they are quoted with their year and source.
How we built this page
We started from the questions people search for about video captions statistics and looked for the organization that actually produced each answer. Every figure on this page sits in an evidence ledger with its source, the exact table or paragraph it came from, the measurement period, the population measured, and the date we checked it. This edition holds 52 figures from 20 publishers.
On September 16, 2026, each figure was re-opened at its source and matched against the recorded wording. Government data came from the CDC's data API and regulators' own pages; pages that block automated requests, such as the FCC's consumer guide and Ofcom's code summary, were checked against Internet Archive copies. Claims about withdrawn pages, such as PLYmedia's 2009 release, use archived copies of the producer's own page. Rules are summarized from the regulator's wording and are not legal advice.
We only cite the producer: government agencies, regulators, company filings and official posts, and the survey owner's own report. We do not cite statistics roundups, Statista-style aggregators, or salary sites without a public method. We did not bypass paywalls or sign-up forms; where a full report was gated, we used only the figures its publisher states publicly.
Figures marked "our calculation" are arithmetic on the cited numbers, and anyone can reproduce them:
This edition contains no Mark Studios customer data.
Limitations
- Caption use surveys ask different questions. "Prefer subtitles on", "use always or often" and "use some of the time" produce very different numbers, so compare figures only within one survey.
- Several viewing figures come from vendors. XR, Verizon Media, PLYmedia and Facebook had commercial interests in video advertising or captioning.
- The most-cited sound-off data is old. The Verizon Media study is from 2019 and Facebook's figures from 2016; we found no newer published measurement.
- Rules change. The DOJ moved its ADA Title II compliance dates in April 2026 and took comments until June 2026; check ada.gov for the current dates.
- This page is not legal advice. Whether a rule applies depends on who publishes the video and where.
How to cite this page
For a single figure, cite the original publisher named next to it, and link here if the verification trail is useful to your readers. Each figure has its own anchor, so you can link straight to it, for example https://www.markstudios.com/research/video-captions-statistics#VWR-005. To cite the page as a whole:
Mark Studios. "Video Captions Statistics." Last verified Sep 16, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/video-captions-statistics
Our calculations and the evidence table are free to reuse with attribution and a link to this page. Each underlying figure remains the claim of its original publisher, and some publishers ask for a link when their figures are reused.
Sources
Download the evidence table (CSV)
- World Health Organization, Hearing loss (WHO health topic page) (undated). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- World Health Organization, Deafness and hearing loss (WHO fact sheet) (2026-03-03). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- National Center for Health Statistics, CDC, NHIS Adult Summary Health Statistics (data.cdc.gov dataset 25m4-6qqq) (2026-08-26). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- National Center for Health Statistics, CDC, NHIS Adult Summary Health Statistics (data.cdc.gov dataset 25m4-6qqq) (2026-08-26). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- RNID (Royal National Institute for Deaf People), Prevalence of deafness and hearing loss (2026-08-18). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- World Health Organization, World Hearing Day 2026 (undated). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, The August 2025 AP-NORC Center Poll - topline (subtitles) (2025-09-27). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Netflix, You Read That Right: We're Introducing a New Way to Experience Subtitles (2025-04-24). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- XR (Extreme Reach), with MX8 Labs, Captions Are No Longer Optional: U.S. Audiences Now Expect Them Everywhere They Watch Video (2026-05-21). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- YouGov, Most American adults under 30 prefer watching TV with subtitles — even when they know the language (2023-08-11). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- YouGov, When watching TV shows or movies in your native language, do you generally prefer to have the subtitles on or off? | Daily Question (2023-02-24). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Stagetext (research conducted by The Audience Agency), Research shows 42% of people say 'concentration' is a reason to use subtitles. (2023-11-13). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Verizon Media and Publicis Media, Make noise with the right digital video captioning (Verizon Media and Publicis Media infographic; PDF title 'SoundandVideo_Infographic_051319') (2019-05-14). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Facebook (now Meta), Facebook for Business, Capture Attention with Updated Features for Video Ads (2016-02-10). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences (SAGE); author Morton Ann Gernsbacher, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Video Captions Benefit Everyone (2015-10-01). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Netflix, What We Watched the First Half of 2026 (2026-07-16). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- YouTube (Google), Unlock a world of viewers with multi-language audio (2025-09-10). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- YouTube (Google), Unlocking a global audience with auto dubbing (2026-02-04). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Federal Communications Commission (Code of Federal Regulations via eCFR), 47 CFR 79.4 Closed captioning of video programming delivered using Internet protocol (2016-12-01). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Federal Communications Commission, Closed Captioning of Internet Video Programming (FCC consumer guide) (2021-01-27). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division (ada.gov), Fact Sheet: New Rule on the Accessibility of Web Content and Mobile Apps Provided by State and Local Governments (2024-04-08). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 (2024-12-12). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- U.S. Access Board, Revised 508 Standards and 255 Guidelines (2017-01-18). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- European Union (EUR-Lex, Official Journal L 151, 7.6.2019), Directive (EU) 2019/882 on the accessibility requirements for products and services (2019-06-07). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Ofcom, Plain English Summary - TV Access Services Code (undated). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- U.S. General Services Administration (Section508.gov), Captions and Transcripts | Section508.gov (2025-08). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- YouTube (Google), Use automatic captioning - YouTube Help (undated). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Digiday, 85 percent of Facebook video is watched without sound (2016-05-17). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- PLYmedia (SubPLY), PLYmedia: Subtitles Increase Online Video Viewing by 40% (2009-03-23). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Ofcom, Television access services: Review of the Code and guidance - Consultation (2006-03-23). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Stagetext (survey by Sapio Research), YouGov survey supports Stagetext's findings (2023-03-15). Accessed 2026-09-16.
Update policy and change log
We re-verify every figure quarterly and when a major source publishes a new edition. The next scheduled review is December 2026. Corrections go to contact@markstudios.com.
- Sep 16, 2026: First published with 52 figures from 20 publishers, each checked against its original source. Our blog post on burned-in versus closed captions had cited a 92% sound-off figure through a captioning vendor's blog; the 2019 study's own summary does not contain it, and we corrected the post on the same day.
