Smart TV. Social TV. Connected TV. All phrases that, for those of us in the smart TV space, we hear every day. But how familiar is the rest of the world with these buzzwords? Not very.

We asked more than 1,000 random respondents to rate their familiarity with five different phrases on a scale from “Very Unfamiliar” to “Extremely Familiar.” The phrases in question were Connected TV, Cord Cutting, Apps for TV, Smart TV, and Social TV. Overall, “Apps for TV” fared best, with an average of 2.34 (where a 2 corresponded to “Somewhat Unfamiliar”), while “Cord Cutting” was least familiar to respondents.

Familiarity clearly varies with other factors, though. What about education? Interestingly, those who didn’t complete high school were most familiar with “Social TV”, “Apps for TV”, and “Connected TV”, while they were least familiar with “Cord Cutting.” As a general rule, higher levels of education were associated with decreased familiarity with each buzzword. The following graph depicts the percentage of each group that was “Very Familiar” or “Extremely Familiar” with each term.

How about age? Average familiarity across all buzzwords was, unsurprisingly, highest in the 25-34 age group, with a steep decline for respondents aged 45 or older. Looking at each term individually, “Cord Cutting” and “Smart TV” were nearly  as familiar to older age groups as to younger ones. By contrast, “Social TV” and “Apps for TV” dropped precipitously among the older set.

That’s all for this week’s post. If you’re as interested in these results as we are, check out two previous posts: What do consumers think of their remotes? and How men and women approach smart TV products.  

If you’d like to find out more about our survey — or to suggest a topic for a future post — get in touch.