Oct 14th, 2015, 07:54 PM

What Happened to the House Party?

By Taylor Ieropoli
Dancing at a house party in the good old days.
Thanks to Facebook and Netflix, house parties aren’t what they used to be.

In college I once tried to give a house party. You know, a booze-soaked soirée where you put on your party dress and dance all night to your favorite tunes in a pulsing living room crowded with all your friends? Well, it didn't quite turn out as planned.
Perhaps I have a soul that is too old, or maybe I set my expectations too high. I would have had a blast if even one of the twenty-five confirmed Facebook friends had showed up. But as I cracked my first Budweiser and put out a bowl of chips, I could hear the ding of my phone as, one by one, each person sent a text saying, "Sorry! Can’t make it tonight, have fun though!"
This explains the problem with Gen Y parties. Facebook was launched in  2004 and, eleven years later, we are finally seeing the effect it has on our social habits. We Millennials are a flaky bunch. Facebook makes it extremely easy to create an event and disseminate the invite list. But because there was no human interaction between party host and partygoer, it makes it easy for people to confirm casually but never actually show up. Saying you are attending an event on Facebook is the equivalent of hitting the “Like” button.  Essentially you are saying, “I like that you are having this event, but I probably won’t decide until the day-of whether or not I’m actually coming.” 

But we can’t blame it all on Facebook. Texting is a large part of the way we communicate, and it makes it so much easier to cancel our plans with friends. Before the turn of the century, not everyone had a cell phone and calling was still the preferred method of communication. It was harder to call friends and tell them you would not be attending their party, hearing the disappointment in their voice. Today, we just send a quick text apologizing and then ignore the angry messages coming back at us. Gen Y heavily subscribes to the “out of sight out of mind” method. If we don’t look at our phone until the morning, then it never really happened, right?
I would be remiss, however, if I didn’t place some of the blame on Netflix -- because it makes staying in an appealing alternative to going out. Pre-Netflix, if you wanted to stay in on a Saturday night, you had to either hit Blockbuster early before all the good movies were taken, or have a really good DVD collection. Now we have not only movies but we have television too, right at our fingertips. You can watch the latest new releases or binge-watch your favorite show without getting off the couch. Find a place that delivers beer with the pizza and you’re living a dream in the comforts of your own home.
These examples can be backed up by statistics brought forward in a New York Times Article.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average number of hours per day that 15-24 year olds spend socializing between 2003-2014 dropped to 9 minutes from 15 minutes. In the same time frame, the number of young people in the same demographic group who attended house parties on the weekends declined from 7.1 percent to 4.1 percent.
Although sad but true, Millennials just don’t party the way so many before us used to. I for one am disappointed we don’t find joy in the simplicity of having a few beers and listening to some records with our friends. But I too have been known to flake out at the last minute. Sometimes if the choice is to stay at home or go to a bar, it’s a lot more appealing to stay on the couch and get the play-by-play by texting your friends instead—while scrolling through Facebook with Netflix on the TV, of course.