If you're the kind of person who can sit through an entire TV show without sending an email, tweeting, skimming your Instagram feed, swiping through some Tinder profiles or browsing Amazon, congratulations: You have a better than average attention span. And that makes you a little weird.
Watching TV while simultaneously using a smartphone, laptop or tablet is on the verge of becoming a majority behavior worldwide, and in the U.S., it already is. According to a survey of 55,000 people by the research consultancy TNS, 56% of Americans engage in another digital activity during their TV sessions, a behavior termed "screen-stacking."
That's ahead of the global average of 48%, but behind most countries in Asia, where screen-stacking is overwhelmingly popular. Japan leads the world, with 79% of adults reporting multi-device TV watching.
Asia is also out front when it comes to watching TV-style video on other devices. About one-third of users in China, Hong Kong and Singapore watch online video every day, according to TNS. In Hong Kong, watching video on a computer or mobile device during the evening is actually more common than watching TV, with 26% reporting the former versus 14% for the latter.
