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Comment by colmvp | Hacker News Reader

Having looked at some of the photos, one of the things that I notice is a lack of televisions which I see amongst sometimes with my friends.

I find when I go to my friends living room with a PS4 and tv, we generally chat for a few minutes before diving into games or videos. Or if I go to another friends place, they feel obligated to entertain instead of allowing one another to be he entertainment. And while I certainly enjoy those moments around the tv, it feels less gratifying than talking amongst each other about the state of things and being deep within our conversations. Perhaps that's why when I'm alone, I love listening to podcasts with two people talking amongst themselves because they tend to go very deep and are very focused.

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Along those same lines, I never understood why bars and clubs have such loud music as to make conversation impossible. Especially if it's just canned music, so you're not there to listen. And especially more if the idea is to meet women (or guys).

As far as I can determine, it's fashion. It's not that games and videos are intrinsically more enjoyable than conversation, or that people have more success meeting the opposite sex if talking is impossible (granted that it might work very well for some people). I think it's more of a culture/fashion thing and this can change over time.

According to a friend with a restaurant, quiet restaurants get worse reviews and people don't seem to enjoy themselves as much.

Obviously there are exceptions, and some particularly expensive restaurants are pretty quiet (I have eaten at some of them with said friend and we have discussed this phenomenon).

I also heard that louder places sell more alcoholic drinks?

To reduce the boredom induced by not being able to have a conversation, no doubt

Or, places that sell more alcoholic drinks tend to get louder?

I think there were some controlled experiments to answer that question.

Yep.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-0277.2008....

I think it has to do with the clientèle. At restaurants, you want to be around the buzz of conversation but not be unable to hear the people you're with, so restaurants where both are possible are better places. There's a sort of privacy within the crowd. Whereas at a dead quiet restaurant it's impossible to have a conversation of any depth because anyone at a neighboring table can hear it.

At a club most people are there to drink a little and dance, and it's much easier to dance when the music and the bass are loud enough to make you forget yourself. If GP is looking for conversation over drinks, maybe go to a pub or something instead.

I've always understood it to be economics - people drink more in louder bars.

But it might be fashion, too. It's what people expect the bar they want to go to to be. And maybe certain people don't go to a bar to talk, anyway.

Loud music increases alcohol consumption. Bars and clubs are in the business of selling alcohol, so of course the music is really loud.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-0277.2008....

If you are struggling just to exchange a few sentences, suddenly the mindless wooden banter at the bar seems less pointless. It seems more like a real accomplishment.

I remember reading a study stating that the louder the music, the more refreshments get sold because people drink faster/more when they can't have a conversation.

Quick google search: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2432699/Loud-music-in-bars-m...

>> Along those same lines, I never understood why bars and clubs have such loud music as to make conversation impossible.

Bars I can understand but the point of a club is the music/dancing. You go to a bar for some conversation before the club. Seems a lot of bars are becoming part-clubs though because that's what people want (local bars and pubs have been closing down pretty quickly in the last 10 years).

for regular bars I don't know, but if you want to score at a club, talking is often a hindrance. a few looks and dancing is usually enough to get started, and the loud music can even be a pretext to go elsewhere.

There is a distinction to be made between the living room and the family room. Family rooms tend to have TVs, and living rooms are for sitting+conversating.

This is an article of clearly well-off households and their living rooms. Your mention of PS4 and tvs leads me to believe you're younger, and that your friends are perhaps not living in houses the size of those that the German upper/upper-middle class families whose homes are pictured. I don't think I know anyone in my own social circle who has both a family room and a living room, because the extra room is almost always turned in to another bedroom.

e: Please continue the conversation, tell me what I had read wrong -- simply downvoting me is rude and unconstructive.

As mxfh pointed out, these are guest-welcoming areas of rich people. Elite people in Germany (pretend to) not watch much TV.

(I never owned a TV, within or without Germany.)

In my circle of friends only minority has TVs, we are more of a Internet generation, TV lacks interactivity and limits selection.

BTW. I'm not from Germany and never lived there.

Internet connectivity and screen size are fairly orthogonal.

This. It's crazy to me that my entire generation loves to say "I don't own a TV" while staring at videos on their tiny laptops (or even phones) all day. You don't need cable or any other subscription to get a lot out of a TV.

Similarly, I have a MASSIVE TV on my living room wall, but it's off most of the time. In these days of flat-screen TVs, very few concessions have to be made to have a large TV. It's not like when we needed huge entertainment centers to hold a television. It does not exist at the exclusion of anything (except money, I suppose). It doesn't take away from anything when it's off. It doesn't necessitate cable/satellite television (we have neither). To me, it's sort of like when people complain about Facebook/smartphones/24x7 connection to the office/whatever being an addiction and such a burden in their lives. shrug I use it to enhance my life, and when I don't want it, I don't partake.

I don't invite people over often, but typically when friends are over we're not watching television or youtube videos, unless that's the point of the gathering (watch a sporting event together, or whatever).

> It doesn't take away from anything when it's off.

While you can certainly design a room around a modern TV easier than in the past, I still find them to be aesthetically unpleasing when I'm not using them. Especially when dealing with small apartments and studios, I don't want a large TV in my space.

Yes, in fact it's surprisingly difficult to buy a small one that is still feature rich.

TV comes with advertisement and having to watch on other people's schedules.

By the way, almost nobody has a subscription for TV in Germany. Pay TV is not really a thing there.

'Historically' not owning a TV was really just saying that you don't watch broadcast television and, by extension, that you don't really watch much TV (like The Onion's Area Man [1]).

I agree that this interpretation doesn't make sense anymore. What fascinates me is that many people will still use "I don't own a TV" to mean the same thing. Even more interesting is that more than a few people I know, myself included, will even believe what that statement implies despite it being completely inaccurate.

It wasn't until recently that I realized that not having a TV had absolutely no impact on my consumption of entertainment, and yet somehow it still felt like I was being 'more responsible' by not having one. Nevermind the fact that I'll happily binge on Netflix or watch hours of YouTube, and not just in my living room at broadcast times, but anywhere and at any time where I have 'nothing to do'.

Maybe one day people will brag about having only one dedicated media consumption device at a fixed location in their house!

EDIT: I just realized that another common implication of "I don't own a TV" is that the person is more discerning in their consumption and only watch 'good stuff' (HBO, feature films, etc.). Having spent loads of time watching only the highest quality shows (of which there many nowadays), I can't help but feel that this is also very often just another justification to consume relatively pointless media that just happens to be well-written and expensive. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

[1]: http://www.theonion.com/article/area-man-constantly-mentioni...

In my experience it's a generational thing. I'm 29, and whenever I'm with people around my age sometimes the TV will be on, but only if we're actually watching or playing something. Otherwise the TV is off. Whenever I'm with people of my parents' generation though, the TV is always blaring even if they're not actually watching anything, and since they always watch live TV instead of streaming services the advertising is incredibly annoying.

In years past when I'd be on group trips and sharing a room with one or more people, there were definitely those who would turn on the TV as soon as they walked into the room. Always drove me crazy to be honest.

I'm certainly open to believing it's a generational thing. If you grew up watching whatever happened to be on I could see you more accustomed to TV-as-background than something you turned on to watch a specific thing.

On the other hand, in airports/bars/etc. I see no shortage of TVs blaring today. Maybe this is driven by the preferences of an older generation but I'm a bit skeptical.

>>they feel obligated to entertain instead of allowing one another to be he entertainment

A most excellent pithy summary!!

When I have friends over, we end up in my workshop or the kitchen or just sitting on the stairs by the front door, talking. I've tried to raise my kids to appreciate that, for adults, switching on a television or bringing out a cellphone while in the company of another is a rude gesture and a signal : "you bore me."

> Having looked at some of the photos, one of the things that I notice is a lack of televisions[...]

Living room == formal entertainment room (ie. no TV) Family room == casual family entertainment room (ie. TV)

Source; 2 sets of German grandparents.

I stopped watching TV on a TV twenty years ago, but I watch enough Netflix/YouTube and read enough frivolous social news (including some HN stories) to more than make up for it.

Nothing like a television to make your room look garish! Or to ruin the potential to hang out or go on and do something else.

Agreed. I'd rather have a projector in the living room than a TV.

You made me curious. What are those podcasts?

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