Your Screen is a Bad Dinner Date

Regardless of life circumstances, shared meals form community. Even college students should imitate this ritual: spending intentional time with one another doing an ordinary thing, eating dinner for the extraordinary benefits, or at least a break from their screens. I I Graphic created by Alys Dickerson

The opinions reflected in this OpEd are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of staff, faculty and students of The King's College.

“Dinner at 6:30 tonight. Be home!” read a typical text from my dad in our family group chat. My parents have always prioritized our family dinners.

We eat all together, with no television on in the background and no phones at the table. This has been our rule since I was very young, when “no phones” meant not answering the landline instead of smartphones. Our dinner table is where I heard about my dad’s work.

I learned on which side of the plate to place the silverware and how to interpret news headlines. I told my parents about my classes in school and what I had done that day in ballet rehearsal. My siblings and I laughed over long-running inside jokes. We all passionately discussed the NBA—and with a Lakers fan, a Warriors enthusiast and a Thunder fanatic around the same table, our dinner times during Western Conference playoffs were particularly animated.

When I moved to the opposite coast to attend college, family dinners mostly disappeared from my daily routine. My typical dinner became a quick meal sitting alone at my desk with my computer in front of me. Most college students’ dinners resemble this scenario. We eat whenever we can squeeze it in and rarely without a lighted screen in front of us. Despite the convenience of eating while working, even people who live alone ought to incorporate “family dinners” into their routines. 

In contrast to my sad desk dinners, I have a professor who invites students to his home to join his family for dinner. Once during freshman year, I accepted my professor’s open invitation and dined with him, his wife and his kids. Afterwards, I expressed how enjoyable the evening had been. My professor replied, “Students always go nuts about this, but all we did was serve spaghetti.”

I wonder if my professor realized that I had not sat at a kitchen table with other people in months. Compared with my usual cubicle meals, even spaghetti was extraordinary. 

Family dinners do not merely foster conversations—they improve family dynamics and the health of children. According to a report from the American college of pediatrics, teens who have frequent family dinners are more likely to have better grades, better family relations and healthier dietary patterns. They are less likely to suffer from depression. Children who regularly eat with their families have fewer behavioral problems and less emotional stress. These benefits decrease when the frequency of dining together goes down, as well as if the television is on during the meal. Despite the advantages of consistent family dinners, they are disappearing from many families’ schedules. 

A recent study reported that family time at the dinner table has declined by more than 30 percent over the past three decades. It is ironic that families are shifting towards the patterns of college students and single people, when those who live alone should instead be modeling the habits of healthy families. 

Regular shared meals are important for parents and children who still live at home, but also for people who live on their own. Too many lonely cubicle meals prompted me to start having “family dinners” with my roommates and friends. It is difficult to plan so that my roommate and I can sit at our kitchen table and eat together, but it’s worthwhile even if only for 15 minutes. My dinners with friends are not the same as those with my biological family, yet they are still enriching. I inevitably laugh harder during shared meals than I do at any other point in my day. I always learn new things about my friends—their likes and dislikes, their childhoods, and their aspirations—while eating together. 

“I wonder if my professor realized that I had not sat at a kitchen table with other people in months.”

Children benefit from family dinners partly due to the bond that forms between them and their parents (and their siblings, if they have any). Because family dynamics improve with regular time together, roommates and even friend groups could expect similar advantages from such dining. 

Regardless of life circumstances, shared meals form community. Even college students should imitate this ritual: spending intentional time with one another doing an ordinary thing, eating dinner for the extraordinary benefits, or at least a break from their screens.