Peanut Buttering

I bought a TV! Could this be the biggest mistake of my life?

One theory for why New Yorkers are so social is that because everyone lives in a tiny, cramped apartment, they don't want to be at home, so they go out and about and spend time in public places. The inverse would imply that the nicer and comfier you make your home, the more asocial you will become because being at home alone is too pleasant.

Along the same lines, it's a major step-change in your at-home entertainment value if you buy a nice television set with a fancy sound system and plenty of video game consoles. What if you just... don't? Maybe that preserves your incentives to go outside and seek entertainment from more positive avenues, such as inviting people to go hang out. And when you're hanging around at home, either alone or with others, maybe the lack of the TV encourages you to do other—again, theoretically more wholesome or beneficial—activities.

But second-order effects make this complicated. I had friends in college who purposely did not buy a television so that their living room would be centered around socializing, rather than consuming media. Meanwhile my housemates and I had a classic living room setup with a couch directly facing a TV. But I can't conclusively say that one house was more social than the other.

The TV-less home did seem more conducive to conversation and dinner parties. But the in the TV-ful home, there was often someone in the living room watching something or playing a game on the TV, which became a nucleus for other people to gravitate to and hang out with that person and share the activity with them. People would also congregate at the house for watch parties of various media. Ultimately, you can make nearly as many arguments that the TV promoted socialization as you can that it discouraged it.

But I think that the solo living vs. group living dimension is important here. In group living there's always a natural pro-social energy stimulating people to interact and be together. When living alone, there's a very real possibility of turning your apartment into a gravity well that just sucks you in and traps you, alone. So I'm inclined to think that yes, if you avoid buying things that make your solo life even better, such as a TV, you can maintain "going outside" as a compelling alternative, and this will be enough of a nudge that you really do go out and socialize more.

HOWEVER! While this argument might have held in the past, does it still hold today? Even if you buy nothing for your apartment but a bed to sleep on, you still have your phone, and maybe even a laptop. And on these devices you always have access to innumerable forms of pleasureful entertainment. My implication is: if you would have otherwise watched TV, removing the TV might just shift that time to watching TikToks, rather than shifting to leaving your apartment. So the marginal impact of the TV may be minimal.

In the end, if your goal is to give yourself positive incentives to leave the house, you could sleep on a futon which you fold up after you get up for the day; instead of comfy furniture, stick to wooden stools; and keep the temperature unbearably cold so that leaving the apartment is a relief. I think this would work! But it'd also suck.