What Benefits Do Closed Captions Have?

There are so many different scenarios that captions play a vital part in efficiency, but even more important, creating usable content for all walks of life. There are approximately 7 learning disabilities and about 20% of the population operate with at least one every day. During the pandemic students receiving accommodations dropped by 1%. Indicating that either we stopped having faculty that would support the need or those in need did not ask for assistance. We can solve for what we know, but how hard is it to solve for the unknown? 

Songbird’s mission is to promote environments that automatically provide solutions for people with visible and invisible learning disabilities. We want to redefine how organizations look at providing transcriptions, captions and even subtitles. In the current world where it has to be a requested service, our goal is to help push it to be the new standard. With our AI powered and human validated workflows, we want to encourage a proactive thinking, where institutions automatically provide services for people with learning disabilities and the need to request is eliminated. 

Reasons to start thinking about captions and transcriptions for your content:

• 85% of videos on Facebook are watched without sound
• Companies are investing in online video captions to reach more audiences in foreign markets. 
• Social videos generate 1200% more shares than text and images
• Recognizing unfamiliar words and industry jargon is a time-consuming for transcriptionist
• Most people speak at a rate of around 110-150 words per minute in normal conversation, so it's easier for us to record our words vs typing them.

When Do You Need Closed Captions:

• Can help when in public places that have background noise causing distraction.
• When sound is not allowed, audio can still be received on mute.
• If the audio is of another language or the person speaking has an accent.
• The speech in the video is too fast, too quiet.
• The most common reason students use captions is to help them focus.
• The most common reason students use transcripts is as study guides.

Sources:

• https://www.usu.edu/accessibility/captions/benefits
• https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/07/24/what-federal-education-data-shows-about-students-with-disabilities-in-the-us/
• https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/79619
• https://www.discoveryaba.com/statistics/learning-disabilities-prevalence#:~:text=More%20Learning%20Disability%20Statistics,%2D20%25%20of%20the%20population.
• https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/need-to-know/try-this-at-home/85-percent-facebook-videos-watched-without-sound/#:~:text=According%20to%20data%20from%20publishers,and%20are%20muted%20by%20default
• https://www.typingmaster.com/speech-speed-test/#:~:text=In%20general%2C%20it%20is%20considered,or%20reading%20aloud%20a%20passage