UCLA report: Teens’ favorite pastime is going to the movies

Good news for theaters still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and other industry disruptions: A new UCLA study has found that teenagers’ favorite thing to do is going to the movies.

The latest installment of the university’s “Teens and Screens” report — which surveyed 1,500 young people across the U.S. ages 10 to 24 — identified going to see a film on opening weekend as adolescents’ No. 1 preferred pastime when cost, transportation and other barriers are removed from the equation.

Among that age group, moviegoing ranked above watching sports, playing video games, streaming movies or TV shows on personal devices and other forms of entertainment.

When factoring in cost and other obstacles, however, 39.2% of teens selected playing video games as their favorite activity over watching TV or movies (33.3%) or scrolling on social media (27.5%).

“The lore really is that all they care about is social media and YouTube and streaming and bingeing and that the movie business is dead,” said Yalda Uhls, executive director of the Center for Scholars and Storytellers at UCLA.

“I was buying into the narrative that kids don’t care about movies as much. But the reality is, when you ask them, they really do care.”

Movie theaters need all the youthful enthusiasm they can get. Box office ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada are down 11% from last year and remain significantly lower than pre-pandemic levels, according to Comscore.

Uhls, a former movie executive, said that studios tend to ignore the teen demographic and that in order to effectively tap into that market, they need to do a better job of reaching out to young people of various backgrounds and taking their habits and preferences into account.

“Do the research,” Uhls said. “If you’re making content for teens, think about the lived experience of all teens.”

So what do teenagers want to see onscreen?

According to the UCLA report, 36.2% of adolescents prefer fantasy over other genres; 63.5% value stories about friendship and platonic relationships over romance; and 62.4% believe that sex scenes are not necessary to advance the plot of TV shows and movies. (Only survey participants 14 and older were asked for their opinions about on-screen sex.)

Each of those totals saw a huge jump (of at least 39%) compared with last year’s study.

On the other end of the spectrum, only 7.2% of young people enjoyed movies and TV shows about the rich and famous; 13.9% said they wanted to watch films and series tackling real-life issues that affect society.

Amid all of the information about shootings, climate change, injustice, politics, war and other real-world issues dominating the news and social media, kids need an escape, Uhls said. And not just in the form of superhero movies.

“It feels like that’s all we give them,” Uhls said. “They want to see a broader array.”

On the exhibition side, theaters can attract more teens by offering event screenings — encouraging patrons to wear costumes to the show, for example — and offering group discounts for young people, Uhls said.

“It’s just that typical moviegoing experience,” Uhls added. “They all love it the way I did growing up … and if you give it to them, they will come.”