IN POOR TASTE
Phones ruin a meal: study
If you didn’t enjoy that restaurant meal the way you thought you would, maybe the reason wasn’t the food, decor, or your server.
Maybe what made it less than a stellar experience was the use of your phone.
A new study from the University of B.C. has found that people out for a meal at a restaurant with friends and family enjoyed it less if they were using their smartphone. Ryan Dwyer, the study’s lead author, said he wanted to explore the effects of smartphones on the experience of having a meal in a restaurant. He said it has become a common sight in restaurants: people seated together at a table, whether it’s a family or a couple on a date, staring at their phones.
“I won’t speak for everyone, but a lot of us still do it. I still do it,” said Dwyer, a doctoral student in psychology. “It is kind of this weird situation where most people think it’s wrong, but we’re still engaging in this behaviour.”
Researchers studied 304 people in 84 groups of three to five people at a restaurant on West Broadway in Vancouver.
Each participant was randomly asked to keep their phone on the table or to put it on silent and in a container.
After eating, they were asked how much they enjoyed the experience.
People with their phone on the table reported feeling more distracted. And that reduced the enjoyment during the meal of spending time with family members and friends.
The measurable effect was about half a point less on a seven-point scale, Dwyer said.
Dwyer said the effect isn’t huge and isn’t like participants had a terrible time with their phone out on the table. He translated the half-a-point difference to a Google Review of 3.75 instead of four out of five.
“If they ’re having a four-star experience, that’s a lot different than a 3.75-star experience,” he said.
The study also found that people felt slightly more bored during the meal while their smartphone was present.
The study, Dwyer’s master’s thesis, was published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
A second study involved 100 people who were sent a survey to their smartphone five times a day for a week. It found similar results: people enjoyed being with others less if they had been using their phone.
Dwyer said as a culture, we need to recognize that we have a problem with smartphones — despite their obvious benefits.
He suggested one way to sidestep the marketing intentions of various apps to keep people using them is to be mindful of your use and set rules for yourself.
When you are out for dinner with friends and family, for example, maybe it would be a good idea to put the phone away.
“For the sake of your well-being, it is probably better for you to be focusing your attention on real things in the real world that are right in front of you and be less distracted,” he said.