The faster the internet gets, the less patience we all have with even the most insignificant of waits. A new study shows that a mere two second delay is enough for many people to give up and move on.
According to the recent study, based on 2.3 million views by 6.7 million unique users, users will start abandoning “short” videos after two seconds, and that 20 per cent have moved on after five seconds. As far as the study is concerned, “short” equals “less than 30 minutes,” so you can probably imagine the migration happens even faster when you’re talking about a one or two minute clip. Viewers waiting for longer flicks (probably films) are willing to put up with a lot more BS.
This mass buffering exodus isn’t the same across the board however. A user’s patience also depends on the type of network they’re using. fibre, Cable, and DSL users are all pretty similarly impatient, but mobile users are far more likely to wait around staring at the buffering animation like a chump, which isn’t all too surprising.
Where do you stand on the internet video waiting game? Does two seconds sound like an instant, or more like an eternity? [GigaOM]