Modern decor may be straining people's brains • Hacker News Board

Re: Modern decor may be straining people's brains

#251

Post by glimshe » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 3:48 PM UTC

michaelchisari wrote: post #5

If you've ever been in an home owned for generations, filled with books and knickknacks and heirlooms and family photos, despite the clutter it all feels comforting in a way that modern decor doesn't. The article doesn't touch much on why modern decor emerged as it did. It's a market response where everyone needs to (or feels the need to) pick up and move at a moment's notice. Companies are either expanding or like t…

I feel the opposite. I find old homes heavy, cluttered (as you said) and oppressive. I love clean and modern environments.

Re: Modern decor may be straining people's brains

#252

Post by simoncion » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 3:49 PM UTC

TacticalCoder wrote: post #184

sgt wrote: post #94

> Many LED systems use a dimming technique that rapidly switches the light on and off (sometimes hundreds of times per second). While this is invisible as flicker to the naked eye under normal conditions, eye movements can expose it This is what I've always felt too, but if you talk to any lighting "expert", they'll say "no that's simply not the case with LED lighting since the year... 2009 or whatever ...". Highly s…

> This is what I've always felt too, but if you talk to any lighting "expert", they'll say "no that's simply not the case with LED lighting since the year... 2009 or whatever ...". Highly suspect. Way before the Internet I had games running at 50 Hz (PAL). And we fully knew the difference between, say, a 2D game scrolling at full-frame rate and a game running a 25 fps: we could tell immediately. Same for intros and d…

> ...there's IMO a simple trick to make the lighting much warmer...

Gross. That orange light is nasty. Light that's the color of the noontime sun during a clear day is far superior. People say "Oh, it looks so sterile and clinical!". I say "Jeeze... just give it a week or two. You'll wonder how you ever dealt with having every white thing look like UV-damaged formerly-white plastic.".

I do agree that headache/disorientation-inducing flicker is awful, but disagree that setting up an incandescent bulb would do all that much for it. Better to replace the garbage LED blinkers with something that's not broken.

Re: Modern decor may be straining people's brains

#253

Post by PsylentKnight » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 4:07 PM UTC

YinglingHeavy wrote: post #137

frogperson wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Church groups, or at least an awful lot of them, were co-opted by groups like the Council For National Policy (parent group of the Heritage Foundation). I think a lot of younger folks see through the BS and don't want to send their time listening to hate speech discussed as gospel. These churches chose thier path, and so did their parishioners.

As a Nietzschean it is amusing, this argument that Christianity is losing favor because it is...not moral enough! Truly our institutions are post-Christianity. The herd morality has out survived Christianity itself. Nietzsche's nightmare

It’s losing favor because it’s lacking in a lot of ways. The most exhorted virtue in the church is faith, which is just another word for irrationality. So the church often ends up in conflict with reality or even its own doctrine

Its more difficult to maintain this when everyone has a device in their pocket that allows them to access information and people outside their church bubble

Re: Modern decor may be straining people's brains

#254

Post by nine_k » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 4:38 PM UTC

kmfrk wrote: post #185

obscurette wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a discussion regarding this some time ago with my grandchild who has an ADHD diagnosis. She has troubles being in noisy (especially visually) environments, yet she finds my home (relatively large home full of books, music always playing etc) comforting. She explained that all this stuff in my home is interesting for her and speaks with her - "It's you and grandma, it's full of stories". But the very modern and…

The acoustics of homes with clean walls and floors can also be absolutely miserable. Some small dining rooms amplify all the worst noises and make it terrible to be in, drains your mental battery like few other things.

Very much so. This is why, wherever I move in, I try to put shelvesn on the walls, hang something non-flat off them, put closets and drawer units so that they form a jagged line. Not only are these things functional, they do away with the terrible reverberations that every sound produces otherwise.

Re: Modern decor may be straining people's brains

#255

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 4:39 PM UTC

appreciatorBus wrote: post #19

michaelchisari wrote: post #5

If you've ever been in an home owned for generations, filled with books and knickknacks and heirlooms and family photos, despite the clutter it all feels comforting in a way that modern decor doesn't. The article doesn't touch much on why modern decor emerged as it did. It's a market response where everyone needs to (or feels the need to) pick up and move at a moment's notice. Companies are either expanding or like t…

I am skeptical this is the origin of modern decor. The trend away from ornamentation, toward simplicity, flatness, etc in design goes back several generations and transcends interior design. If the thesis was true, we'd expect rich people who will never be compelled to move against their will, or to move into less space, would prefer cluttered homey interiors, and poor people would prefer sparse & modern. In reality,…

Very rich people do prefer cluttered homey interiors. The ideal is plush, showy, old, and ostentatious. This is the saloon at Eaton Hall, owned by the Duke of Westminster, one of the richest UK billionaires from one of the oldest families. This particular room isn't particularly cluttered, but the living spaces really aren't minimal at all.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS0H4Sp...

Minimalism is more of an (upper) middle class thing - doctors, lawyers, architects, software developers. The abstraction and clean lines are cool, rational, aspirational, and controlled.

Middle class people on the artier end of the spectrum are more likely to be maximalist, with bright colours, busy wallpapers, huge shelves of books, plants, and such.

Poor people need a lot of stuff because they have to hoard things in case they break. Mass market products are usually low quality, mass-produced from cheap materials, and not very well made.

Working class spaces are often chaotic, claustrophobic (because literally small), full of mismatched items and general clutter.

There's a particular kind of upper working class chrome-and-glass look which is its own attempt at minimalism, but doesn't quite get there. It's still chaotic, the spaces are disorganised, but it's very, very clean and shiny. Instead of feeling controlled and expensive it feels sterile.

The startup office look is a mix of minimalism with some maximalist stylings. It's supposed to be informal and "fun", but the big spaces are disorienting and loud, and the bright colours and lines are distracting.

Re: Modern decor may be straining people's brains

#256

Post by KoolKat23 » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 4:43 PM UTC

michaelchisari wrote: post #5

If you've ever been in an home owned for generations, filled with books and knickknacks and heirlooms and family photos, despite the clutter it all feels comforting in a way that modern decor doesn't. The article doesn't touch much on why modern decor emerged as it did. It's a market response where everyone needs to (or feels the need to) pick up and move at a moment's notice. Companies are either expanding or like t…

I've come to realize clutter makes me anxious. This is a quite common for people. Sadly I still own lots of shit.

Re: Modern decor may be straining people's brains

#257

Post by jodrellblank » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

inigyou wrote: post #163

appreciatorBus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am skeptical this is the origin of modern decor. The trend away from ornamentation, toward simplicity, flatness, etc in design goes back several generations and transcends interior design. If the thesis was true, we'd expect rich people who will never be compelled to move against their will, or to move into less space, would prefer cluttered homey interiors, and poor people would prefer sparse & modern. In reality,…

I believe in practice yes. It isn't a planned design choice - it's just a practical consequence that if you are moving around a lot, carrying possessions with you has a much higher cost than if you are staying in the same place. You'll be more averse to accumulating possessions. If you are staying in one place, you only have to reduce your possessions when you start running out of space.

“A rolling stone gathers no moss”, you say?

Re: Modern decor may be straining people's brains

#258

Post by ErroneousBosh » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 5:42 PM UTC

inigyou wrote: post #168

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a market response where everyone needs to (or feels the need to) pick up and move at a moment's notice. You see the same thing with cars. People choose to buy (or more commonly lease!) a car for a few years and before they've even decided to buy it they're planning to sell it. This is why there are so many sad grey cars on the road - pick a colour that's easy to sell! Don't get anything too wild, it might not…

I don't need to drive, luckily, but I heard that cars cost so much these days that you really have to be planning to get back as much money as possible. Cars cost what shitty houses used to cost, even adjusted for inflation.

> you really have to be planning to get back as much money as possible

Why? Just buy a car, and drive it.

Re: Modern decor may be straining people's brains

#259

Post by mannyv » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 5:59 PM UTC

appreciatorBus wrote: post #19

michaelchisari wrote: post #5

If you've ever been in an home owned for generations, filled with books and knickknacks and heirlooms and family photos, despite the clutter it all feels comforting in a way that modern decor doesn't. The article doesn't touch much on why modern decor emerged as it did. It's a market response where everyone needs to (or feels the need to) pick up and move at a moment's notice. Companies are either expanding or like t…

I am skeptical this is the origin of modern decor. The trend away from ornamentation, toward simplicity, flatness, etc in design goes back several generations and transcends interior design. If the thesis was true, we'd expect rich people who will never be compelled to move against their will, or to move into less space, would prefer cluttered homey interiors, and poor people would prefer sparse & modern. In reality,…

Modern decor has been this way since the bauhaus. Saying simplicity transcends interior design makes no sense; it is part of interior design.

The repeating patterns on carpet are an artifact of mass production.

Re: Modern decor may be straining people's brains

#260

Post by olelele » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 6:16 PM UTC

gib444 wrote: post #203

olelele wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So many bars & restaurants don't care enough about this.

Given coffee shops etc hire psychologists to select annoying music to optimise revenue, I wouldn't rule out bad acoustics as a choice (particularly larger chains) Though with bars and restaurants being brutally hard to survive and turn a decent profit, I would mostly attribute it to just cutting costs

I spent most of my adult life in Berlin and most places here it’s due to 100% ignorance. Tearing out everything and putting in euro pallets as furniture + packing the place w drunk ppl was the general modus operandi. Acoustic treatment doesn’t have to be expensive.