7 March 2010 / REUTERS, NEW YORK
Are movies your way of escaping the daily grind? You’re not alone, with a Reuters/Ipsos poll finding more than two out of five people across the globe go to the cinema often to suspend reality, if only for a few hours.
The survey of more than 24,000 adults in 23 countries was released as the global movie industry prepares to honor its top talent at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards on Sunday. It showed that of the 42 percent of people most likely to go to the movies as much as they can to escape reality, the majority were from Turkey (67 percent), India (61 percent), South Korea (54 percent) and Australia (52 percent). “Movies are now celluloid books,” said John Wright, senior vice president of market research company Ipsos. “What one generation did in curling up and reading an exciting or romantic novel to escape or to dream is now manufactured weekly for the younger generation who are the most avid filmgoers,” he said in a statement. Not everybody, however, believes in the escapist power of the movies, with the poll showing that the majority -- or 58 percent -- do not consider movies as a diversion from the real world and do not watch as many films as they possibly can. Countries whose inhabitants are most likely to feel this way are Hungary (76 percent), the Netherlands (74 percent), Mexico (74 percent), Sweden (71 percent) and Germany (70 percent). There was, however, little difference between men and women, or between various income brackets, but not surprisingly, respondents aged under 35 were more likely to escape to the movies (49 percent) compared to older people aged between 35 and 54 (36 percent). Wright said this could be explained by the younger generation’s addiction to technology. “With the explosion of far-reaching and hands-on technology, people don’t just watch movies, they experience them as immersed participants in a multidimensional experience or they can create something themselves and share with it the world by simple upload, no popcorn required,” he said.
