I recently read Jakob’s Nielsen’s Alertbox article from Dec. 5, 2005 titled Talking-Head Video Is Boring Online and I started to think about how I watch/listen to video online. Looking at his eye-tracking screenshots and the accompanying video, we see that users do not spend all their time fixated on the video. There is equal heat over the playback controls, the alternative articles and the “Close Window” button.

I know that when I find a great TED video to watch, or some interesting video podcast, I will start it and then continue on with my work and listen to it as background noise. Unless there are compelling videos or an interactive component to the video, I see no need in actually watching the video. If it was as easily accessible as audio, I probably would just listen to the audio instead.

People today seem to multitask more and more; according to the “other” Nielsen in Multitasking at Home: Simultaneous Use of Media Grows “With respect to TV and Internet usage, we found that a fair number of people are doing both simultaneously, though in relatively small increments per day.” I imagine that watchers of web video are similar to those users of Internet and TV simultaneously. TV (or online video) becomes a passive interaction, and the Internet use is a more active interaction.

I am curious if anyone has done any studies regarding this, to determine if users can recall the information from the video that they passively listened to. Does it detrimentally impact their other activities?