Interesting question...

[cloudsinvenice]

What's going to die out in the next twenty years because the younger generations simply have no attachment to it?I've been reading this Reddit thread on and off for the past 48 hours; towards the end it repeats a lot as more people just come in going, "cursive" or "cable TV" over and over, but the first, say, 10 subthreads are fascinating. I think

Comments

[author_by_night]

I know the post means dining areas in general, but you know, my entire life I think I've only seen a handful of proper, separate dining rooms. Most houses I've been in either have either a "dining room" that's more of an extension of the kitchen, or just had the kitchen. We sort of have both - we have a kitchen table, but a more formal table for company or holiday dinners. Even then, while we call it the dining room, it's not really a room. So I think dining rooms have been rarer for a while, it's just that the idea is so culturally ingrained we don't consider how few people actually have a room just for dining.

Someone mentioned actively owning your entertainment, and that's an interesting point. I bought a bunch of music on my iPhone, and my iPhone appears to be hijacking said music until I sign up for a 30 day trial, which I'm not going to do because um, I bought it. But that doesn't seem to matter

[cloudsinvenice]

I think separate dining rooms are more common over here because there's so much old housing stock. That said, a lot of people like to knock through the wall between their living and dining rooms, and kitchen extensions to add sofas and make the kitchen into the family hub are very popular.

I remember some people having problems with Apple actually deleting their music collections! It makes me very uneasy and I do prefer to buy CDs that I can upload, though I do buy mp3s now and again. When our external DVD-RW died recently, I asked around about a replacement and a friend talked about having actually got rid of her DVD collection in favour of subscribing to various streaming services. I do want to get Netflix, but I'd be really uneasy about not having physical copies of my favourites. It just seems so easy for terms of use to change, or companies to go under... it wouldn't surprise me if more people did favour more basic tech in order to take back some control.

[semyaza]

You could try the torrents rather than Netflix unless you'd rather not go that route.

[cloudsinvenice]

I'm inclined to avoid the torrents because despite multiple explanations I still can't quite get my head around it. I'll probably succumb at some point for things that can't be got in any other way, but what I meant was more that I'll keep buying physical copies of certain special things.

[semyaza]

It's best not to stick one's neck out. Anyone who said 'vinyl records' thirty years ago (as my brother did while showing me his shiny new CD player) would have been wrong. Wedding china is already decades gone and I wouldn't be surprised if it came back (given how much interest there is on Pinterest in china in general). Cable TV - definitely. Desktop computers - but that's obvious.

I'm not sure about dining rooms. That may be cultural rather than generational. My niece married into a vast Sicilian family and the entertaining is constant. That necessitates dining rooms (and, I suppose, china).

I'll say Christmas cards.

[cloudsinvenice]

I've a feeling you're right about wedding china - at least, I think the physical objects will always retain their appeal, and the idea of collecting something over a number of years is very satisfying for a lot of people. It might just be that people get more into secondhand collections - so many couples' first home is a flat these days that I suspect china fans will get into it later on when they have more space to store things used for best

[semyaza]

Twenty years ago it was a matter of no one being interested in buying and owning china dinner services. I think the rot set in much earlier because that's how I came by my vintage Wedgwood service in the '70s. The owner's daughter didn't want it. At that time there was a move towards earthenware. Now I think it's more a question of women not collecting household linens and other items before marriage - because they don't marry or they marry late by which time they have everything they need as was the case with my niece

[cloudsinvenice]

Oh, I like the pony wall idea! Nice way to preserve a feeling of spaciousness while still creating a useful barrier. Suddenly remembering that the (probably 60s) house I lived in as a toddler had a serving hatch between the kitchen and the dining-room-end-of-the-living-room/dining-room/thing...

[j_okay]

Very interesting! I honestly never knew how wedding china worked (pick out a pattern? okay....). I suppose in my mind it was already a long-gone tradition, but I think department stores still have areas devoted to wedding china. Always on the top floor where nobody goes, hah.

I love how someone in the dining room thread mentioned D&D and taple-top gaming. XD Indeed very useful for that.

And I think those who said 'cable tv' are just drunk on wishful thinking. Those companies are way too profitable (read "evil") to go away anytime soon. :(

[cloudsinvenice]

Yeah, I've heard about how the business works over there, and I'm not very impressed with the cable/phone/ISP companies here either. In theory you have lots of choice. In practice, only a couple of companies in our area (i.e., the capital city of NI) are offering decent wifi speeds, and they both charge through the nose for it. Our ISP has actually just announced a massive price hike. I resent all the "only £15 a month for six months!... then we hike it to £45" offers; I'd rather pay £25 a month from the get-go and have it stay that way. But the whole business model is based around new customers, so it's all about luring people from the competition and then jacking up the prices once they're established.