With 63% of U.S. consumers owning a smart phone and 40% owning a tablet as of early June 2014, the presence of second screen devices is affecting nearly every aspect of our life, for better and worse.

Those devices are also competing with the incumbent ‘primary’ screen in most of our homes: the TV set. But how big of a distraction are these second screens really? Are strategies like web-exclusive TV show content, games, apps, and social strategies helping to keep audiences focused on the show vs. elsewhere? What segments are better to focus on and why?

Turns out, we are very distracted: 45% of us are doing something with our second screen device when “watching” TV. Social media interactions about show content are more engaging than web-based content, apps, and games, particularly among those younger than 25. And those who fall in the middle of hours of TV watched per day are more likely to be engaged with show content online, but it’s still a very small percentage overall.

This gives advertisers a lot to think about.

Joel Rubinson, president of Rubinson Partners, worked with CivicScience to develop some micro-survey research questions and to conduct analysis of the data for a new Insight Report we published today. Read more about what we learned from these 7,000+ U.S. respondents aged 13 and over.

View the PDF immediately here.

Insight Report - Second Screen Devices and TV Viewing - Rubinson Partners