There is an entire field of study on cognitive biases in the way we see things, as individuals and as groups. “Bias blind spot,” “choice-supportive bias,” and “the base rate fallacy” are among the ways we reinforce what we believe and disregard what we don’t believe.

I believe the digital out-of-home media industry—the people who put TVs on trains, buses, subways, taxis, gas station pumps, elevators, office lobbies, and so on— is suffering from a big case of cognitive bias.

At conferences and in research reports, executives and consultants in the DOOH industry (as it’s called in some cases) claim that consumers like captive-audience media—that is, they like audio-video media they haven’t asked for in places where they can’t escape it.

As one executive at a recent conference says (as quoted in an industry report), “Studies consistently show that people do not mind—in fact, ‘invite’ media in out-of-home environments that stimulate them emotionally and intellectually.”

But I believe DOOH executives and consultants have spent too much time reading their own press releases. I have yet to talk to a single person who says they like TV in grocery stores, on gas pumps, in cabs, or in doctor’s offices. At most, they put up with the TV out of the belief that that kind of media is just part of the landscape now. What’s more, whenever consumers are quoted in newspapers and magazines on TVs in restaurants and other out-of-home settings, many of the quotes are typically about how irritating the TVs are. And those are just the polite comments printed in the story. When you read people’s online comments about captive-audience media, the quotes tend to have more exclamation points.

That said, I don’t doubt for a second that the studies being pointed to by DOOH industry people do in fact support their contention that we love being made captive to audio-video media. For a company or an industry to produce studies supporting what they want them to support is a time-honored tradition and something anyone who’s completed Statistics 101 can do. I recall two “studies” that came out within the last three months that show people liking TV in two different types of out-of-home settings (one a retail setting, the other a medical one). I put “studies” in quotes because they came from an independent firm that measures audience traffic but the studies were commissioned by the out-of-home media companies. Um, that means the media companies paid this independent company to “study” whether people like their product. Neither of the press releases that came out mentioned the fact that the studies were paid for. When I called the media contact on one of the press releases to confirm that the study was paid for, the contact threw back questions at me about whether I was media or not rather than just answer my question.

As it is, I have my own study on captive-audience media and after only one day the results show overwhelmingly that people dislike TV in public places.

The study isn’t objective, you say? Well, let’s look at this. The way I spread word about the survey was completely random. I simply tagged the blog page on StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, and Reddit. So I have no idea who will find the survey from those sites. I also tweeted about it, but I only have 40 followers, and some of them are just fronts for sites that sell Viagra, I think. There might even be a few DOOH people following me. I know the tweet was re-tweeted once, to a group that seems to have nothing to do with media of any kind. So, that seems pretty random.

Here are results of my survey so far:

* 75% say TV in public places is always or often an unwanted distraction
* 100% say the information on the TV neither helps nor enriches their life
* 100% say they would prefer to get information on specials at a grocery store on printed signs rather than in-house TV
* 75% say TV in public places makes it hard for them to read or think
* 100% say they’d rather read or think in a doctor’s waiting room than watch TV
* 100% say piped-in commercial radio on a publicly subsidized train is a violation of liberty and privacy rights

Those are the factual results from my survey one day after inviting people to voice their views. These results don’t match up with DOOH industry studies. If the different studies are equally factual, what can account for this divergence?

In the DOOH report referenced earlier, called Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) of Digital Signage the author of the report, an industry consultant, listed threats and weaknesses to the DOOH industry. The report does not list people’s dislike of captive-audience media as a threat. My own view is that, as captive-audience media spreads further, people will take notice and at some point many people will say that captive-audience media is going too far.

Do I suffer from cognitive bias? Listen, I’ve got the study to prove my contention.