Is this phenomenon unique to the information technology industry? I don't know what they do for fun at pharmaceutical conferences, but I suspect alcohol is often involved.
I think the common theme is you have two audiences: Young people who like to party and overdo it, and old people who have a rare night out and inadvertantly overdo it.
I don't have empirical numbers, but I'd say many (half?) of the folks attending major multi-day conferences will have at least one rough morning.
Hard to pin this on just technology. And many folks don't act this way at home. (With small kids, anything more than 2 drinks can become an issue)
>That said, I am still struggling to find good alternatives to the pub meetup, particularly in the UK. Other than taking over the corner of a larger coffee shop for a daytime meet, what kind of things are possible and inexpensive for small groups? //
So ditch alcohol and go with caffeine instead ... hmm.
Maybe with the right groupings gaming could be part of the solution?
You need something that people can share, that requires communication and so initiates conversation. (That gives people something to do with their hands? That fosters a sense of shared experience?) Some types of gaming can do that and in certain sectors gaming may be as universal as drinking.
So, everyone back to my place for a game of tiddlywinks then?? [I did mean computer gaming but ...?]
It also needs to be sufficiently unstructured that people can drift in and out as individual conversations move past small talk.
Maybe, but hosting happy hours after conferences is not a symptom of that. It's a symptom of our various societies having discovered alcohol, and then built up a lot of social norms and customs around it.
It's like saying that our society has a violence problem because people like to gather around a television and watch men hit each other while trying to tug a ball around a field.
"I have a drinking problem? Fuck you, Peck! You're a Mormon! Next to you, we all have a drinking problem!" http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Burn_After_Reading
"They found the Dutch morals much too libertine. Their children were becoming more and more Dutch as the years passed by. The congregation came to believe that they faced eventual extinction if they remained there." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrims_(Plymouth_Colony)
Does our Society have a drinking problem?