How to keep phones off the dinner table

If you've ever looked up from your plate and seen every person at the table looking down at a screen, you know the feeling. Nobody meant for it to happen. One person checked a message, someone else looked something up, and suddenly dinner was quiet for all the wrong reasons.

The good news is that dinner is one of the easiest places to start. It happens every day, it has a clear start and end, and everyone's already in one place.

Why phones at the table matter

You might think a phone face down next to your plate does no harm. One well-known study says otherwise.

Researchers at the University of British Columbia asked more than 300 people to go out for a meal with friends or family. Half were told to keep their phones on the table, and half were told to put them away. With phones on the table, people felt more distracted and enjoyed the meal less, and they even reported feeling a little more bored (Dwyer, Kushlev and Dunn, 2018).

Just having the phone there is enough to get in the way.

How to set the rule

Make it a family decision. Talk about it together instead of announcing it. "What if we tried dinner without phones this week?" goes over much better than a new law.

Keep it simple. No phones at the table, for anyone, from the time we sit down until the last person is done. That's it.

Adults go first. This only works if the grown-ups follow it too. Kids notice right away when the rule is only for them. We wrote more about setting a good phone example for your kids.

Decide what counts as an exception. A call from a family member who's traveling? A parent on call for work? Agree on it ahead of time so nobody's arguing mid-meal.

How to make it stick

• Give the phones somewhere to go. A basket, a drawer, a shelf in another room. Out of sight works much better than face down.
• Start with a few nights a week. Sunday through Thursday, or just weekends. Grow it once it feels normal.
• Bring something to the table. A question of the day, a story, a card game for after. Silence feels awkward at first, so fill it with something good.
• Linger a little. Some of the best conversations happen in the ten minutes after everyone's finished eating.
• Expect a few slips. Someone will forget. A friendly reminder is enough.

If your family wants a nicer home for those phones, the Saalo Box was designed for exactly this. Everyone's phone goes in, the lid closes, and the Saalo app counts the time you spent together. If you're weighing other options, here's how a dumbphone, an app blocker and a phone box compare.

Dinner is a great first step. When you're ready for more, here's why the whole evening is worth spending without your phone.

You can join the Saalo Box waitlist at saalo.co/shop whenever you're ready.