The Digital Video Series: Millennials | Infographic

Younger millennials welcome social media video viewing

This week, we're looking at digital video viewers. Each day, we'll feature a different demographic to better understand how various age groups engage with video. Yesterday, we looked at kids and teens. Next up: millennials.

This year, 64.8 million millennials will watch digital video at least once a month, according to eMarketer estimates. That figure will continue to increase year over year, reaching 66.8 million by 2022.

Just like kids and teens, millennials are shifting away from traditional TV. An April 2018 study conducted by ThinkNow Research, revealed that millennial internet users were more likely to watch TV shows on Netflix and YouTube than watch a live show on network TV.

Similarly, we expect 59 million millennials will watch traditional TV this year, and that figure is expected to decline steadily through 2020.

As the core demographic of digital video viewership, millennials reach for all types of devices when they want to be entertained.

On a typical day, millennial internet users who watch more than 3 hours of video content are more likely to use a computer, connected TV or even a gaming console to do so than their younger or older cohorts, according to a June 2018 Magid survey.

Where else are they streaming content? Social platforms, naturally.

"Social platforms are adding to the explosion of digital video," wrote eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson in her report, Video Ads in Social Media 2018.

Indeed, a study Shareablee conducted last year found that nearly half (47%) of younger millennials would watch their favorite TV show on social media if they were available. Older respondents were also interested, but to a lesser extent.

"Because younger millennials have a high social network usage, they are typically exposed to more frequent video viewing on platforms like Snapchat and Instagram, which are heavy on video content” said Monica Peart, senior director of forecasting at eMarketer.

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