Who has never grumbled at a thoughtless partner or friend who answers texts at the table when you had dreamed of a restaurant dinner to talk, exchange news and chat?
What parent of a teenager has never lost their temper with their offspring, holding a mobile hidden under the table between their knees and consulting it out of the corner of their eye between two mouthfuls of spaghetti with tomato sauce?
In Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, in the Hérault, a restaurant owner has taken matters into their own hands: at Le Petit Jardin, no mobiles or tablets at the table! And they see to it themselves that the rule is respected, with whistles and yellow or red cards handed out to offenders. They want the table to remain a place of exchange and conviviality. It is not their only commitment, since they also ban fizzy drinks and ketchup and apparently serve only locally and regionally sourced food.
An initiative that apparently gets people talking, since the owner displays in front of the restaurant no less than 5 square metres of newspaper articles about it. And as they say themselves, handing out a yellow card during service makes every table laugh and talk to one another!
So yes, let us say it again: screens at the table are one of the worst obstacles to communication. Eating in front of the news makes people mute, not to mention that the images shown are not suitable for the youngest. Answering your texts or emails at the table gives your family the feeling that they are less interesting to you than your smartphone. And in these conditions, what parent will be credible in forbidding their teenager to do the same?
It is therefore a family rule worth adopting to put our connected devices away before sitting down to eat, to make room for conversation, so that everyone can tell about their day, their joys or their sorrows. Otherwise, as at Le Petit Jardin, red card!
A physician and director of the André Boulloche Day Hospital for Children in Paris, she works in particular on the relationships young people have with screens, communication with young children, and autism.
