If your home is too comfy, why would you leave?
My family is from Southeast Asia and one thing I noticed is that while their home isn’t bad, it’s not like super comfortable either (they only have one AC unit which doesn’t cool the home adequately) so rather than stay at home, they’ll just go and hang around in shaded areas and meet with friends in public spaces.
Likewise in larger cities, apartments tend to be smaller and/or older and usually those cities tend to have more vibrant outdoor/third places, because it’s just better to meet groups of people rather than hosting in your studio apartment.
Basically I’m willing to bet that when we reached a point of our homes being so comfortable and having so many amenities we just stopped seeing the need to gather outside of our homes. Who needs cinemas when we have home theaters?
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To add on to your point, why pay $20 for a movie ticket when my tv at home is free? I think it’s a double whammy of homes becoming more comfortable and life becoming more expensive.
I’d rather meet up in town than drive to the opposite end of suburbia any day.
I think you’re talking straight facts. I think for sure the nicer your home the less reasons there are to go out. Entertainment and events are the main reason to go out but only when those are things you can’t easily do at home.
There might be something to that, but I don’t know what you expect people to do with this insight. Shittify our homes so we don’t want to go back to them? lol.
It’s also going to depend on what type of third places you have around you. I live in a coastal city so we have the beach right next to us. Far more likely you are going to meet up in summer to have a chat and a swim than if you are surrounded by fields
Making the home comfy for others is work.
If they leave, it’s work too.
If you meet on third places you can evade this kind of work.
There is certainly truth to this. People value comfort but it’s often friction that gives things character. If my house is comfortable why leave, if my tv is big why go to the theater, if my food can be delivered why cook, if I can hang out with my friends online why go out. It’s really easy to be comfortable but then you stop having to meaningfully engage in the world outside your home and stop having your views questioned and stop getting exposed to new things and ideas. You can’t learn to swim if you never go into the water.
I would half agree with this. My home is very comfortable, so I hate to travel, because I know it’s just going to be weeks of being less comfortable than being at home.
However, I work from home, so after a while even the most comfortable home feels a little claustrophobic and you have to get out. So that’s what that third place is about.
>Basically I’m willing to bet that when we reached a point of our homes being so comfortable and having so many amenities we just stopped seeing the need to gather outside of our homes
There’s a lot of kids that do that nowadays. They have friends, they just spend all day playing games together and chatting with each other on Discord from the comfort of their own room.
Its not that they never hang out irl, it’s that hanging out online feels equally valid to hanging out in person to them. The only difference is that they don’t need to ask for their parents permission to hang out online.
It’s not only about comfort, space and luxury. It’s about variation, change of scene, new experiences and exploring what cities have to offer. I love going into town and discovering a really cool new bar that I’d never seen before.
A society where everyone just stays at home and has home gatherings is boring as fuck. We lived through it already in late 2020-mid 2021. I hated it.
In the parts of the US I’ve lived in, doing anything outside the home usually required driving 20+ minutes to a location. That gives incentives to make home more comfortable which gives less incentive to going out…
It’s also income / life stage dependent. Teenagers and young adults see third spaces as a place to hangout with their friends without parents or housemates to interfere. Those who live in studios or small apartments may prefer to meet friends in a public setting than attempt to squeeze everyone into their homes.
All my peers who have now done the grownup thing and bought their family-sized homes are suddenly super keen to hold friend meetups at home instead of in public spaces. But once they start having kids they start preferring public spaces again, as refuge away from their kids.
People use third spaces not solely because they don’t have those amenities at home, but because it resides in a separate place in your brain and feels different. Yes, you can drink in your home and watch the sports game there, but the vibe is entirely different at a dedicated establishment. Additionally, you can interact with other people and make friends at these third spaces.
I have a gym membership not because I can’t workout at the fully stocked apartment complex gym, but because it separates me from feeling like I’m at home and because I’ve made friends there.
I agree with this but not in the sense that it’s the comfortable housing that’s the root of the problem, but more so that outside venues and events are not interested/capable in competing with it.
with the cost of realestate, primarily, and other factors that’ve been increasing, cheap outings are not a good enough business model to sustain operations. It’s not feasible for AMC to not charge $10-$15 for popcorn, lest shareholders leave to finically supercharge an alternative theater franchise.
When pretty much all activities, except for parks and pools, have to be a grandiose experience to justify the high overhead cost of business, my house becomes the
most competitiveonly real option when it comes to trivial and inexpensive enjoyment.There’s no where for my to lounge with friends over a hard drink without it costing me 2-3 hours of my work’s worth in exchange, except our houses
Yeah living in an apartment in a city with amenities is not worth it to me. I’ve done that. I just want my own yard and house where I can invite people over that I choose. I’m tired of sharing with strangers.
Probably yes, with the exception of teens, who thrive on social gatherings. Or maybe that’s my boomer view 😉
>If your home is too comfy, why would you leave?
Because I like going outdoors and doing other things? My house isn’t big enough to facilitate a bike ride through the woods. I can’t drive golf balls in my living room. Theres no beach….
Comfort =/= fun
>Who needs cinemas when we have home theaters?
Who needs concerts when we have home audio players? People still like a night out.
If you capped people at ~14 hours of screen time (outside of work) per week you would likely see third places explode in popularity.
Americans would address anything except for blaming the dire need of cars and defunct public transport to get anywhere. Literally, the reason that Asian countries have thriving third spaces is that you don’t need cars to access them at all, which means the roads can be as small as they can be amd you don’t need to designate parking spaces which in turn increases the land usage for other things.
I think it’s the other way around.
If thriving third places exist I’m going to be happy in a tiny apartment. If I can walk to parks and there’s always something to do outside, why would I need a big home? If street vendors and local restaurants have affordable, tasty food I don’t need a big kitchen. If things are walkable I don’t need a car and parking.
Also, high density housing like small apartments helps third places exist because there’s enough people in a condensed area to support and use those spaces. There’s enough people that you can plan groups for any interest from trivia to hiking to karaoke and enough people with that niche interest actually live close enough to attend. The suburbs are so sprawling and you’ve got to drive so far to things you’re less likely to go, and you’ve got a smaller number of people supporting them (via taxes or patronage.)
Third spaces are mostly for poor people and/or children.
I disagree because third places have things most homes don’t, like more space and specific activities. Even if not, you get far more in-person social interaction in third spaces.
I feel like you’re not using “third place” correctly. Third places are often seen as community meeting places. Previously they were churches, pubs, town squares, etc.
The lack of third places had led to a disconnect from the community and isolation.
I don’t care how comfortable my home is, I’m not hosting a town hall there and it won’t replace a communal area to be around other people.
To me, the counter argument is looking at how the social behaviors of young people have changed so drastically since the invention of the smartphone.
Kids growing up in the suburbs 15+ years ago largely had all the creature comforts we have today, but constantly gathered at places like friends’ houses or parks for the purpose of hanging out.
Even with online gaming being a thing, it was much more common for millennials to decide to actually get together and game, where the modern attitude seems to be much more “why would I take all the time to go to someone’s house just to play a game I can play at home?”.
Though, to be fair to your point, that’s partially because people feel like they’ll be so much more comfortable playing with their TV, their chair, their controller, etc. – but I don’t think it’s that the spaces have got more comfortable. It’s that the general “we” has largely retreated into their comfort zones to an alarming degree.
Hmm. I can see the logic
We built our property specifically so we could entertain; and to host family over holidays such as Christmas.
Sort of. If I could afford to be comfortable at home and go out I would. But I’m not going to eat cheap ramen and sleep on a cot so that I can go out for a couple hours once a week.
Meanwhile people with better housing and more money than me go out more often.
When home costs at least $60/day, imma be there.
It’s not necessarily that the apartments are bad, just small. They’re essentially a place for you to sleep, while you have an entire city to live in.
Compare this to having a big comfy home. If everyone around you also has a big comfy home, then most of the city is other people’s private space, and you get your big comfy home and not much else. You actually get less space to live in overall. I personally think it’s an awful tradeoff and a shitty waste of resources, but some people absolutely need that large private space and I guess that’s understandable.
Also, keep in mind that these places usually have their 3rd spaces within walking distance. Having to drive and park is a huge barrier when deciding to go out.
Don’t like the event/hangout? Now you have to drive 30 minutes back instead of a quick walk, which might lead you to a different spot.
Is this an opinion or just an observation? Seems like it would fit more on r/showerthoughts
This logic assumes being constantly being alone or repeatedly in the company of the same small handful of people who live with you is more rewarding to people than being in social community settings because they have more space, AC, etc when they alone.
This doesn’t make sense when you consider how much of a social creature we are.
You assume in places people meet outside of their homes because their homes are too small when often they choose smaller homes because they prefer spending time in public over in isolation and don’t need large homes. You have it backwards
It has nothing to do with our homes being comfortable, and everything to do with our minds being uncomfortable
I wfh and it’s different because I’m here all day everyday. I need to get out, even if it’s to the store or to get a coffee. I’m an introvert but I still feel the need to socialize outside.
If I worked outside of the office, 100% I’d be home all the time.
I don’t really agree. I live in a normal apartment (55 sqm/600sqft) and I can still host friends. And sometimes we do that, we have dinner or drinks here. Pretty common actually.
We still like going out for drinks and community events though. Or we might have dinner here and then go out.
I think you’re correct if housing is really sucky. But in a lot of cities it isn’t.
The corner store near my house took out the tables that customers would gather at in the morning. This wasn’t done due to lack of use. Rather it was done specifically because the business decided it wasn’t good to have people hanging around so much.
I actually get mad flak from my friends about how often I say no to plans because of how much I love being at home. I pay so much money for a nice home and then fill it with all my favorite shit so why would I leave to go do the same shit I do at home but for money? I go to 2-4 concerts a month but other than that I dont leave the house much by choice.
Meh, maybe some truth but it’s a chicken or egg problem. There’s also a ton of friction to going outside to any shared spaces where larger more comfortable homes exist (the suburbs) and that is why people “pimp their home” with home theaters, coffee setups and gyms. Driving 10-20 mins somewhere isn’t as easy or fun as walking/run/biking there in a city. Could you even find a cool coffee shop, bar, restaurant, or theater in the average US suburb? probably not. There are no bands playing shows. No musicals. No opera. You can go to the park, but it’s probably empty. Your coffee shop is a Starbucks. Your bar/restaurant is a chain in a strip mall. Do suburbs have shitty shared spaces because theres no demand? Or is there no demand because the options suck? I don’t know, but it’s the way things are.
I assure you that wealthy people with comfortable homes in vibrant cities also enjoy going outside, seeing people, and having access to fun and exciting experiences.