One of the things I never got around to acquiring was a TV or a stereo system. Since I have a smaller house and one of those dreadful "open" floor plans I have to use the same space for living that I do for entertaining. I grew up in a culture where, if there was a television in the house at all, it was generally in a different part of the house from where people got together to eat or socialize. I greatly fear that, because of this architectural trend, it's becoming harder to separate dining from electronic activities.
Not having conflicting music or TV sounds makes dinner parties much nicer, because people aren't having to shout over noise to have an intelligent conversation, and people with hearing impairments aren't excluded due to their inability to hear over the din or pick out which of the conflicting speech sounds are coming from the person who's talking. It makes it easy to figure out who's feeling left out or uncomfortable, and to fix that discomfort so that the person feels relaxed and comfortable instead of anxious.
I find that if I can get at least half a dozen guests, we can usually get two to three conversations going at a time around a decent sized table. Nobody's tempted to pull out a phone and people are very seldom in a hurry. Cocktails (not always alcoholic) followed by dinner and then after-dinner drinks (again, not always alcoholic) makes for a nice evening where people actually get to know each other and sometimes form friendships or other attachments that take on a life of their own afterwards.
My Thanksgiving was a blast even though seven of my guests didn't make it. I had a small group, only eight plus myself, but we had a great time and I did the send-a-dish-home-with-everyone thing. The topics of conversation were varied, and although my guests don't self-censor much they tend to find topics unrelated to what's being advertised or discussed on TV. It seems to me that, if people are in the presence of ads or political commentary from an electronic source, they are just as likely to pick up on them as if the ideas were coming from a conversation next to them.