In the era of COVID-19, is watching TV through OTT services becoming a digital leisure activity of choice?

AbstractThis study sought to examine the interrelationships among lifestyle, entertainment preferences, and the utilization of Over-The-Top (OTT) services as digital leisure activity. Specifically, the research was designed to delve into the use of OTT services during the COVID-19 pandemic in Korea. First, the findings indicated that those with a high preference for some leisure and entertainment activities, such as watching sports games and performing arts, showed an increased use of OTT from 2019 to 2020. Lifestyle elements, favorite OTT program genre, and leisure and entertainment preference factors have a significant effect on the intention to continue using OTT as a digital leisure activity. This study suggests that OTT service providers should take into account users’ characteristics when developing their services.Keywords: OTTdigital leisurelifestyleentertainment preferencevideo streaming serviceCOVID-19 Ethical approvalKyung Hee University does not officially require ethical approval for social science research using online surveys.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis research was supported by the MSIT (Ministry of Science and ICT), Korea, under the ITRC (Information Technology Research Center) support program (IITP-2023-2020-0-01749) supervised by the IITP (Institute for Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation).