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I’m addicted to my phone. Wow, it feels good to say it! This uncomfortable truth sharpened recently when a friend shared her pet peeve about cell phones on the table when dining out with companions. “A phone on the table conveys that the person you’re dining with is not fully paying attention to you,” she said. She was paraphrasing the author and inspirational speaker Simon Sinek, who gave a talk about cell phones’ impact on relationships in 2023.
My face flushed from shame as I was suddenly teleported to every previous meal out since phones got smart. If dining out alone, I’d often set the phone on the table face up, ready to pounce on every notification like a cat in a laser-tag arena. If someone joined me, I’d graciously turn it face down, as if to say, you have some of my attention — at least until something more interesting happens on my phone.
It’s one thing to use our phones as emotional crutches or boredom killers when solo dining, but can we please stop leaving them on the table when we have company?
“When we think about the ways we communicate with people, over 55 percent of how someone receives us is through our nonverbal behavior,” says Mariah Grumet Humbert, a certified etiquette trainer and the founder of Old Soul Etiquette in New York City. “Taking your phone out at a table is going to automatically convey something through your body language, even if that wasn’t your intention.”
If your intent is to be present for the conversation, that may not be how the other person perceives it “when your action is speaking louder,” she says. In fact this negative perception is likely magnified depending on the status of the relationship.
As a general rule, Humbert thinks devices don’t belong on restaurant tables, with exceptions for business meetings and solo meals. Yet, being a modern etiquette expert often with her own phone in hand, she recognizes that they’re a huge part of contemporary life.
“I would never say, ‘never be on your phone’ or that I’m anti-phone,” says Humbert, the author of What Do I Do?: Every Wedding Etiquette Question Answered. Rather, we should evolve within our fast-paced world without losing touch with kindness and respect. “The bottom line with etiquette is how can I make the other person feel valued and comfortable in my presence?”
Diners aren’t always set up for success in that department, especially when many restaurants deploy tabletop QR codes instead of paper menus. If the first thing you do upon sitting down is scroll through your phone to select a drink, who can blame you for leaving it out, and maybe answering a text or checking the like count on that hilarious Reel you made?
One way to resist the impulse to put technology first is to instead make a habit of putting devices away. (That goes for putting smart watches in movie mode too.)
“Anytime I’m about to enter somewhere new, the first thing I do is take my headphones off and put them away, and I put my phone away,” Humbert says. “Even if I have to take my phone back out to check a reservation or let a friend know I got a table, I make sure my hands, ears and eyes are completely free when I enter a room.”
That advice translates situationally, too. Once you’ve finished scrolling and decided what to order, snapped a quick pic of your cocktail, or anytime a server approaches the table to check in, think of it like entering a new space, and put your phone away. If you need help making this distraction-machine feel more invasive, Humbert relies on a trick a friend told her about. “If you wouldn’t take a book out to read at that time, would you also take your phone out?’”
If you aren’t convinced yet, consider the trove of scientific evidence released in 2017 by the University of Arizona, which found that our phones are basically petri dishes, carrying 10 times more bacteria than toilet seats. Other studies have unearthed serious pathogens lurking on our phones—including Streptococcus, MRSA and E. coli—owing partly to our tendency to cling to them even in situations where we’d normally wash our hands before doing anything else.
Some who are continuously on call as caretakers of children or elderly parents may balk at my plea to release the vice-like grip on their phones for an hour or two while they grab coffee or dinner with a friend. But I’d nudge them right back to try diminishing its status just a little by putting it on their lap under their napkin and setting it to vibrate, which Humbert recommends.
“There are ways you can access your phone if you need to,” Humbert says. All the better if you’re open with your companion by sharing that you have two young kids at home with a babysitter and prefer to be on call. “It goes back to that common courtesy idea of let’s have face-to-face communication.”
