Ready for summer? Barbecues count as family dinner!
On this weeks’ Time Machine, we are jumping back to see if the good ol’ family dinner is as big a thing as it used to be.
And, surprisingly, data shows family dinners may not have changed much in the past few decades.
In 1987, ORC/Food Marketing Institute asked American supermarket shoppers how often they eat dinner together.
46% said “always” and 26% said “usually.” Only 5% said “rarely.”
CBS asked the same question in 2021 and got surprisingly similar results. After 34 years, 69% said “most of the time” and just 12% said “hardly ever.”
So, Americans have a longstanding tradition of eating dinner together, but are we really conversing and living in the moment or are we multitasking?
Enter technology.
In 1985, USA Today asked American teenagers whether family members usually talk to each other at family dinner, eat quietly, or listen to TV or radio. 76% said they talk to each other, 13% said “listen to radio or watch TV,” and 6% said they eat quietly.
So let’s jump ahead to 2021 when the main technology distraction at the dinner table had become the smartphone.
CBS News asked Americans how often people at dinner were texting, emailing, or talking on a cellphone at the table. And the answers: 41% said “never,” 29% said “rarely,”14% said “sometimes,” and only 6% said “always.”
So, family dinner seems to be just as popular now as it was decades ago but what distracts us has definitely changed.
And…there are apparently health benefits to family dinner as well which we discussed on Poll Hub so give it a listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/poll-hub/id1277880588?i=1000655187202
This post was written by Marist Poll Media Team member Athen Hollis.