Investigating Types of Second Screeners and Their Social Media Behaviors

Using survey data on second screening activities while watching eight types of television programs among 570 Twitter users, we identified four types of second screeners: Specifically, Second Screeners for Politics and News mainly second screens for political events and news; Second Screeners for Sporting Events and Commercials mostly second screens for sporting events and commercials; High Second Screeners second screens all eight types of television programming, with particularly high levels while watching scripted dramas, situation comedies, and live television programming; Low Second Screeners do not exhibit salient second screening behaviors. Matching survey data with a year’s worth of Twitter activities from survey respondents, this paper extends the previous research on second screening as purposive hybrid media practice by examining how fine-grained Twitter behaviors are associated with four types second screeners. We discuss the implications of how different types of television programs can better engage with different types of second screeners.