Social media is changing TV for the better

According to the latest Nielsen report, published this week, social media is playing a critical role in how viewers discover and watch televisual content. One quarter of US viewers now claim that they are more aware of more TV shows than even a year ago thanks to social media interaction, and 15% claim that as a result they also enjoy television more.

Nielsen's data also shows that this is leading to an average daily TV viewing time of five hours and 10 minutes a day for US adults plus a further 34 minutes of time-shifted programming.

The study also found that more and more, viewers are armed with a tablet or a smartphone while watching TV and as well as logging into social media to have the sorts of water cooler discussions that in times gone by would have taken place the morning after in the office or at school, they are also doing a host of connected activities.

While 29% of smartphone users and 26% of tablet owners claim that they use their device for emailing and texting friends about the programs they are watching, 14% of tablet owners also admit to buying a product or service that they've seen advertised during a show via their device.

Nearly one in three (29%) smartphone owners also look up information about plots, actors or athletes (41% for tablet owners) while watching TV and 9% of smartphone owners and 12% of tablet owners say that they use their devices for voting or sending in comments to a live TV show.

Much is made of the growing importance of the second screen and how TV channels should be exploiting it in order to make their shows more engaging and memorable.

And while the results show that mobile devices are becoming as much of a fixture in the living room as the TV itself, the biggest single use for both smartphones and tablets while watching TV is still for simply surfing the web, something that 66% of tablet owners and 49% of smartphone owners admitted doing.

One of the biggest criticisms of social media is its propensity to spoil TV by revealing spoilers and plot twists, particularly when it comes to big shows like "Game of Thrones." However, Nielsen found that only 3% of respondents said that they watch less TV because of spoilers, a figure unchanged from last year's results.