Television is more interesting than people. If it were not, we should have people standing in the corners of our rooms.

Coren’s joke turns a familiar domestic scene into a satirical thought experiment. If television truly outcompetes human company for attention, then—by the logic of how we arrange rooms around the TV—people would be treated like background fixtures, literally placed in corners as passive “content.” The line skewers modern habits of distraction and the way entertainment technology can reorganize social life, furniture, and conversation. It also pokes at the consumerist assumption that whatever captures attention must be “more interesting,” exposing how convenience and habit can masquerade as genuine preference. The humor depends on exaggeration, but it lands because it reflects a real shift: screens often become the focal point, while people become secondary.