Put your phone away and tuck in

In Sardinia, a group of restaurants has barred families from using smartphones at the table in an attempt to get them to talk to each other and connect.

Could this strategy work where all previous attempts — such as asking diners to surrender their phones before entering the premises — have failed?

2 min readOct 30, 2026 06:15 AM IST First published on: Oct 30, 2026 at 06:15 AM IST

In his book of manners, Urbanus Magnus, the 13th-century English courtier Daniel of Beccles wrote: “One can have a meal without a table, but not without a tablecloth.” In the 21st century, one might say that it is not possible to have a meal without a smartphone — or so it would seem by the number of diners who seem loath to look up from their screens.

In the early years of the smartphone, several restaurants tried to ban the device, in order to discourage customers from taking photos of their food and disrupting the experience for others. They gave up partly because it was becoming a losing battle, and partly because social media-enabled discovery changed the stakes for them. In Sardinia, however, a group of restaurants has plunged once more unto the breach, barring families from using smartphones at the table in an attempt to get them to talk to each other and connect. What sets this initiative apart from other similar attempts is that the Sardinian eateries are not simply asking people to put away their phones — they’re offering alternatives like games and drawing kits that encourage interactions.

Could this strategy work where all previous attempts — such as asking diners to surrender their phones before entering the premises — have failed? Commensality has been an important way in which humans have built relationships. And while one initiative in Sardinia isn’t going to solve the growing global crisis of loneliness, perhaps it can show the way, one hot meal at a time.