Video-on-demand apps allow users to stream movie and TV content to their smartphones or other mobile devices wherever they may be… So why do most people end up using them when they could just as easily watch television?
All Things D points out a new study showing that most VoD app users watch streamed video at home (74% of smartphone users, 76% of iPod Touch users, and 78% of tablet users), which makes sense on one hand—it’s where users are most likely to have both the Wi-Fi and the time to watch video, after all—but seems confusing on the other, because, well, why not watch the larger screen called television in that case?
(MORE: Analysts: Pay $30 for Premium VoD Movie Rentals? No Way!)
Interestingly enough, the study—carried out by the Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing—suggests that app-watching doesn’t actually reduce television viewing any: It just adds more screen time to a user’s life.
Besides home, the most popular locations for mobile video viewing are in a car (hopefully as passengers), and the euphemistic “other indoor locations.”
Oddly enough, “on a plane” ranks at the bottom on the list of locations, which has to be because of the lack of fast-and-free Wi-Fi, I’m assuming. Given my recent plane history, I thought that everyone watched movies on their devices on flights these days.
MORE: Study: VoD Is Now 25% of All U.S. Video Watching, and Netflix Dominates the Field
Graeme McMillan is a reporter at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @Graemem or on Facebook at Facebook/Graeme.McMillan. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.