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SALT LAKE CITY -- Social media and news coverage are taking a lot of heat for spoiling the Olympics. It's no surprise that many events are broadcast with a time-delay, sometimes of several hours.
The time-delays might not be a problem if not for the social media aspect that is ingrained in our society. Take a look at a Twitter feed or Facebook and chances are there are at least a few posts that are talking about the Olympics.
Take Saturday night's men's 400-meter swim for example. It was hard not to hear its results hours before anyone could even watch it on NBC.
It actually lead "NBC Nightly News" early Saturday night, before the event was shown on the station that was televising it.
"Good evening from London," said NBC's Brian Williams. "And while we try to be sensitive about spoiler alerts for our viewers, Michael Phelps got crushed in the pool today."
Phelps finished fourth in the 400 meter being outdone by teammate Ryan Lochte who took the gold. But, unless people were living under a rock, they already knew that. In fact most probably knew before the match even made air in the U.S.
"It was a little bit of a bummer," said Ryan Eilerts, who said his family had been looking forward to the Summer Games for months. "I mean that was one of the big events, that was the ones that were really hyped up, big time."
And as Phelps hit the headlines social media lit up with complaints, many popping up under "#NBCfail," and a few other less-flattering hashtags.
Today at Park City's Olympic Park, enthusiasts got a feel for the Winter Games while getting a peek in on the events in London.
"I'm a big Olympic fanatic," said David Senay. "I was in Beijing, and there's nothing like seeing the event live, or even live on television."
Still Senay says you can't let a big mouth ruin the experience.
(AP) - The Nielsen company says 36 million people watched NBC's Olympic coverage Sunday night, the biggest audience for the second night of a non-U.S. summer Olympics competition since TV began covering them in 1960. Counting the opening ceremonies on Friday, an average of 35.8 million people have tuned in for the three nights. That's well above the 30.6 million who watched the first three nights in Beijing in 2008 and considerably more than the 24 million who saw the first three nights of the Athens games of 2004.
"When a spoiler comes you have to realize it's a half a world away," Senay said.
His family says the excitement is still there in watching it happen.
"Last night at dinner they told us the results of the swimming event and we got to run over a half-hour later and watch it," said Michelle Senay. "So, it kind of brought us all together to talk about it before and after."
Troy Anderson on the other hand, "I'm at work, and I see ‘em."
Anderson said he's decided to stay away from Twitter and Facebook. He'd rather not know, but he's okay with that time-delay too.
"I don't know what the time difference it, but I have a feeling that I don't think I could get up for work the next morning if I were to watch it live anyway," Anderson said.
NBC Producers assured viewers over Twitter that news coverage will come with spoiler alerts, and that live coverage will almost always be clearly marked.
In the meantime, in order to avoid having friends ruin the ending, people could consider turning their phone back into, just a phone, just for the next several days.
