With lockdown orders in place, and regular social events canceled, 2020 saw a lot more people relying on their mobile devices, and online networks, for entertainment and connection – but have those behaviors now fundamentally changed how people engage with these apps?

Habitual behaviors can become embedded, and the emotional resonance of such activities can further establish them as key processes. So how engaged are we with mobile video content, and what impact does that have on our response?

To get some more perspective on this, Snapchat recently commissioned a new study to “identify the emotional impact” of viewing video on mobile platforms throughout the pandemic. 

As per Snap:

“We engaged Alter Agents, an independent research consultancy, to conduct a two-part research study between July and October 2020. First, a 15-minute online survey was answered by 1,000 Gen Zers and Millennials (13 to 34 year-olds) about their mobile video behaviors and how they have changed due to the pandemic. Second, thirty-five Gen Z and Millennials watched mobile video content and neuroscience measures were collected using an approach developed by Immersion.”

The neuroscience element is more complex, utilizing cardiac variability to measure a person’s emotional response to certain content. The idea here is that this is a more in-depth measure of an individual’s engagement with the content, and the format in which it’s presented.

The results show that Snapchat, in particular, drives high emotional engagement, with even its ad content reaching engagement levels above the industry mean. Higher immersion improves the likelihood of ad recall, and subsequent action, which is important to note for marketers.

You can read Snapchat’s full report here, or check out the infographic summary of the results below.