Facebook says people can't stop looking at Facebook during TV commercials

Facebook has released new research telling you what you already know: You can't stop looking at your phone during TV commercials.

The social network examined the Facebook activity of a select group of users while they were watching the season premiere of a big TV show. During each commercial break, the group of 537 respondents starting using Facebook more.

Facebook has put together a chart detailing the usage spikes:

While 537 people are hardly a representative sample of its entire user base, and the survey is clearly self-serving for Facebook. The data is directionally compelling nonetheless. And should probably worry big TV advertisers, who are already struggling to break through to consumers who are skipping through their ads using DVRs or avoiding ads entirely while streaming shows on services like Netflix.

The Facebook data would seem to beg for advertisers to try to work with Facebook somehow to sync their TV ads with mobile ads on Facebook.

You can read the full blog post here blog post here.

For its part, Facebook is urging advertisers to rethink mobile advertising, but pushing out more short, attention-grabbing ads and releasing new ad creative more frequently.

"People aren't watching ads for as long as they used to, on any medium," wrote Mark Rabkin, Facebook's vice president of core ads. " TV spots that were designed for a captive audience struggle to hold attention on mobile and don't get watched all the way through."

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