"DinnerTable" news and stories

With entertaining and often addictive websites, such as YouTube, it has become common to find computers at the dinner table. It seems that over the past few years, dinners with friends have involved gathering around and looking at videos online. The computer is clearly changing social dynamics around the dinner table. A few weekends ago, while eating at a friend's house, my friend commented that she would not mind if she never saw a computer at the dinner table again. I wondered: is it poor etiquette to bring a laptop to dinner?

Is there something inherently wrong about a group of friends using a laptop as a means of socializing during dinner? To me, it seems like the problem would start once the socializing ceased to exist. Two people eating dinner and doing work on two separate laptops is obviously antisocial. Sending text messages and emails on a cellphone prevents us from enjoying the moment. And, enjoying a YouTube video with friends is not much different than watching television instead of conversing about the day.

Does a laptop, like television, function as a source of distraction? Does it disconnect us from each other and prohibit us from taking pleasure in our food and natural environment?

Have laptops infiltrated your social life at the dinner table? If so, do you think it's a bad thing?

According to a few recent studies in the U.K., fewer and fewer households own or use dining tables for family meals. Roughly one third of the 1,000 people surveyed by vegetarian food and book purveyor Cranks said that their dining tables were used only for holiday meals such as Christmas dinner. The Cranks survey also found that nearly a quarter of households don't even have a dining table. Sales of dining room furniture have dropped eight percent in the last five years, according to study by market research group Mintel. In the same time period, sales of bedroom and home office furniture have both increased by roughly 40 percent.

Many attribute this shift from eating at the table to factors such as higher divorce rates, smaller apartments and fast-paced, job-oriented schedules that require meals to be eaten on the move.

The Daily Times has more, as does News24.