Food has always had a unique way of bringing people together. It becomes especially evident during family mealtimes, when children and adults gather around the table to share more than just a meal. They share stories, catch up on their day and discuss issues they are dealing with. The scene at the dinner table has, however, changed. People still sit together, but attention often shifts away from the conversation to the devices in their hands.
A recent study in the United States explored how family meals are changing in everyday homes. An online survey of households with at least one child ages 4–10 found that media use during meals is widespread, with 77.6% of parents and 68.7% of children using a device during their most recent meal.
This change in trend matters because when these devices interrupt family communication, it’s children who lose out, getting less guidance and attention that are important for their development.
The findings are published in JAMA Pediatrics.
Technological interference in family time
A healthy meal is essential to support bodily functions, but shared healthy family meals play an important role in both physical and emotional well-being. For many families, mealtime is the only part of the day when everyone comes together. It offers parents the opportunity to connect with their children, stay involved in their day-to-day lives and provide them with everyday social learning.
Studies have shown that children who regularly share meals with their families tend to have better dietary habits and stronger overall well-being. Regular family meals have also been linked to lower risks of substance use and other risky behaviors among children and adolescents.
Despite these benefits, the past few decades have seen family dinners become less frequent. What was once a regular moment of the day is now often replaced by after-school schedules, extended workdays and, most importantly, phones and televisions competing for attention.
Technoference, the interruption of family interaction by digital devices, is becoming a growing concern as screens show up more often during shared meals. Still, there is limited clear evidence about how often parents and young children actually use media while eating together. Most research has looked at parents and children separately, not both at once.
Charting usage patterns
In this study, researchers surveyed 357 parents or primary caregivers across the U.S. Each parent had at least one child between the ages of 4 and 10 and lived with that child most of the time. They were asked to think back to their most recent family meal and report whether they or their child had used any digital devices during it.
The team tracked everything from smartphones and big-screen TVs to tablets, video games and even books. Then they grouped what they found into three buckets: parent-only use, child-only use or both.
They also collected demographic details, such as a child’s age and a parent’s race, and used a logistic regression model to assess whether these factors made it more or less likely that a family would use media at the table.
Technology has become a regular guest at the dinner table, with most parents and children using some kind of device during their most recent family meal. In more than two-thirds of households, both parent and child were using media at the same time, while parent-only use appeared in 12.3% of meals, and child-only use was rare at 3.4%.
Parents most often used smartphones, while children were watching content on televisions or tablets. Patterns of use also varied across the population. Black parents were more likely to use devices together with their children, whereas Asian parents showed more individual use, including children watching TV alone or parents using smartphones separately. Researchers also found that girls were more likely to use media on their own and less likely to share screen time with a parent.
One of the most curious observations was that one person’s media use did not trigger the other’s, meaning a parent picking up a phone didn’t necessarily prompt the child to grab a tablet. The habit was more individualistic.
Pediatricians and parenting experts can use these data to update blanket no-phone-at-the-table rules, possibly tailoring the type of device and how it is used during meals. The data also raises a real question: What are children missing when both they and their parents are on devices at the table? Future studies can explore this question and test whether the same media dependence patterns hold in larger populations and families from other parts of the world.
Written for you by our author Sanjukta Mondal, edited by Sadie Harley, and fact-checked and reviewed by Robert Egan—this article is the result of careful human work. We rely on readers like you to keep independent science journalism alive.
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Publication details
Jiawen Wu et al, Parent and Child Media Use During Family Meals in US Households, JAMA Pediatrics (2026). DOI: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2026.2182
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