Watching TV no longer just means watching TV. After the rise of tablets and smartphones in the late aughts, a second-screen experience became the new standard for home viewing. Live-blogging the latest season of Netflixs Stranger Things, or buying a new T-shirt during it, is now just reflexive for millions of people. According to a 2023 YouGov study, 91% of Americans at least sometimes look at their phones while watching TV. For generations weaned on TikTok, that sometimes might be a little closer to always. As Saturday Night Lives Michael Longfellow recently joked about the apps brief ban: What do I even watch during a movie now?Although viewing habits have long been headed in this direction, whats changed more recently is that Netflix now appears to have adapted to those habits by optimizing for second-screen viewing.A December deep dive into Netflixs approach, from literary culture magazine n+1, describes how the streaming service has subtly changed the way some of its movies and shows get made. As Will Tavlin writes, Several screenwriters whove worked for the streamer told me a common note from company executives is have this character announce what theyre doing so that viewers who have this program on in the background can follow along. (Netflix did not respond to Fast Companys request for comment.)Tavlin goes on to include a dialogue exchange from last years Lindsay Lohan-comeback vehicle, Irish Wish, that sounds like an audio commentary track describing what has previously happened. (I admit it was a beautiful day filled with dramatic vistas and romantic rain, Lohans character says at one point, but that doesnt give you the right to question my life choices. Tomorrow, Im marrying Paul Kennedy.)Overly expository dialogue is nothing new. Its usually just a sign of lazy writing. If its no longer just a trope but rather part of a studio-wide effort to relieve viewers of having to come up for air from their phones once in a while, well, that feels like a different story.The n+1 report isnt the only suggestion that streaming services like Netflix are now making content with an eye toward background viewing. Actor and director Justine Bateman made headlines in 2023 when she told The Hollywood Reporter, Ive heard from showrunners who are given notes from the streamers that this isnt second screen enough. More recently, U.K. outlet The Telegraph singled out a conversation on BBCs Miss Me podcast, between Stranger Things actor David Harbour and host Miquita Oliver, about the process of second-screen pitching. During it, Oliver mentioned that studios are asking for ideas that people will kind of ignore, so they can be on their phone.Netflix seems especially receptive to such ideas. In 2020, New Yorker writer Kyle Chayka coined the term ambient TV to describe Netflix programming like the breezy sitcom Emily in Paris and the reality series Dream Home Makeovershows that are pleasant enough but require zero engagement from viewers. [A]s prestige passes its peak, Chayka wrote, were moving into the ambient era, which succumbs to, rather than competes with, your phone.At the time, the growing abundance of this kind of content could have been written off as a coincidence. If a streaming service is meant to be all things to all people, of course some areas of its programming would have a similarly smooth-brain feel. These recent reports all but confirm, however, that the company is actively making its content more palatable for background viewing.There is nothing inherently wrong with providing ambient TV for those who just want to zone out while thumbing through TikTok (while we still have it . . . ). Considering how many prestige shows still aspire to be taken seriously as high art, its refreshing to see shows with the courage to be trashy fun to have on in the background while doing house chores or decompressing after a long day. Netflix was making the latter kind of show for years before The New Yorker gave it a genre name. It certainly hasnt hurt Netflixs bottom line, eitherthe company just posted a Q4 revenue increase of 16% from a year earlier, helped along by another 19 million subscribers for the quarter.Clearly, Netflix seems to be delivering what people want from it.The question remains, though, whether the company is only contorting some of its original content to be better background viewing, or if that aesthetic is becoming its feature attraction.