I'm middle aged. This kind of background noise sounds terrible to me.

Maybe I just grew up in a quiet place.

I grew up being accustomed to having the TV as background noise but stopped watching it when I moved out. Now, when I visit my parents, it's honestly quite difficult for me to focus on conversation - there's a machine in the corner making deliberately attention-grabbing sights and sounds. So I think your experience is normal & I empathise with the generation that complained about TV ruining family life.

It is terrible, yet quite some people rather have that distracting noise, than hear their own thoughts.

For some it is just the illusion of having more people around them, though.

Same and same and same, but I know exactly why I won't leave the telly on - I'm very susceptible. It grabs me. Even though I have no interest in ads or even 95% of programming. It's not a pleasant feeling.

There are people who like to hear other humans blathering on all around them. Then there are sane people.

We're outnumbered.

John Von Neumann liked to do math with the TV on as background noise. Genius.

I heard all those stories about Von Neumann working like that. According to a biography, his wife once designated a room as his office and he became very angry about that since it was too quiet for him to work there.

Personally I need almost complete silence in order to get anything done, his abilities in this regard always fascinated me.

It's just a different kind of environmental requirement.

It's useful for some people to have recognisable sounds going on while they work, so they have something to latch their focus if they lose it for a second. Whether that be music, or every seinfeld episode on a shuffled loop on the TV.

I have found it useful in the past to listen through every song I have on shuffle while I read, which was nice when I took a few-seconds break every couple of pages and came across a song I wouldn't have picked out otherwise. Alt-tabbing out of a podcast or something completely wrecks my focus on both for some reason though.

I actually prefer to work in a cafe setting, where there is a good amount of non-directed background noise; no one talking to me, but just to each other.

If it's dead quiet, I become hyper-alert to noises, to the point I can't concentrate on working.

When you have permanent background noise in the form of Tinnitus already it's an improvement.

It's a normie thing coping with unbearable ringing emptiness of mind. My sister and niece (7yo) do it.

If Millennial still = young then yeah, YT or something in background on TV, doing something on laptop (dev, or photo editing or other) and then occasionally phone over laptop as well to reply to chats and stuff.

I would kill for some decent high res wide fov AR glasses.

Millennials are currently in their late 20s to early 40s.

sure, it's just Critical Role playing on the YT app on their tv, rather than some cable channel.

I mean I use youtube lets plays or twitch streams for that, but yes its still a thing.