In South Korea there is a phenomenon called “mukbang” (a rather appropriate sounding word) in which viewers pay to watch strangers binge eat over a live video stream during dinnertime. It’s a way of being with people without engaging with them, eating alone without the bother of conversation.
Epicurus once likened eating alone to “leading the life of a lion or wolf.” He was a big fan of companionship. Communal meals are woven into our DNA. In most cultures, eating alone has long been a social taboo. But new research finds 46 percent of adult meals and snacks are undertaken alone. “There’s this true cultural change that we believe is taking place” according to the Hartman Group, a market research company, which prepared the report for the Food Marketing Institute.
One reason for this is the shift towards more single-person households. According to Census Bureau data, the proportion of one-person American households increased from 17 percent in 1970 to 27 percent in 2012. This has encouraged a grab-and-go attitude.
Secondly, the idea of three meals a day is waning. People eat in cars, walking down the street *, or sitting at a desk, and gradually snacks are replacing the fixed meal times. 53 percent of breakfasts and 45 percent of lunches are now eaten alone. Dinner statistics look a bit better, with 76 percent of dinners being eaten with other people present. (* formerly regarded as the height of trogginess).
But “present” is the operative word. The other day, in a London restaurant, I couldn’t help noticing an attractive young couple at the next table, both fixedly gazing at their cellphones during the whole meal. They barely said a word to one another. “Shall we go?” was the first exchange they had. We are in a state of being alone together.
Since you tend to eat less eating alone (not always good for old people), the Georgia Institute of Technology is investigating whether Skype, table-top video monitors or even robotic systems can be used to bring people together virtually during meals. Truly! We are all going to sit in splendid isolation and talk to our friends and family on Skype while we eat? Wendy Rogers of the Human Factors and Aging Laboratory, thinks that technology can be a means to re-establish a “sense of social connectedness and provide the social cues that feed our joy of eating”. (original report by NPR, edited by me).
Fewer children seem to eat with their parents. It used to be at family meals that children imbibed the social, political and cultural ideas of the older generation, the ideas of what’s right and wrong, what’s moral and what’s immoral, the ethical compared with the unethical. Education then used to perform the task of getting them to examine those ideas and make up their own, adult minds As a young person I know commented when asked to engage with his elders,”I don’t talk to adults; I just speak to my friends”, presumably briefly, between tweets, texts and Mars bars. Why do I feel a pressing need for a visit to the doctor for some strong anti-depressants?
Forget a trip to the chemical doctors, instead shake the elders into doing their job. It’s not just the young who aren’t engaging with the human beings a few feet away from them.
The adults in charge could have expended the energy to insist: “Put your phones away. When you’re with others, like it or not, you have to attend.” The young may resist or roll their eyes but in the situation described, it’s the adult passivity that’s striking.
This is all terrible news! Though I must admit I may be at fault as well. I usually eat breakfast alone as I get up at a different time to the others in my family. I mostly eat lunch either with my family or friends. Dinners are a tragedy in our family though- apart from Saturday evenings and Sunday lunch, we tend to eat dinner separately as Dad gets home from work late, and Mum and my sister tend to be preoccupied.
I’m reading this as I eat my lunch alone at my desk.
You forgot the Epicurus’ quote 🙂 … “wolves and lions”