Family mealtimes have always carried expectations. For some, it's a time to reconnect after school; for others, it's a time of negotiation, boredom or even friction. But now, a phone or a TV is part of the meal, too.
A new University of Arizona study has now examined media use during mealtime and has found that more than 70% of parents and children in the U.S. use media across various devices during family meals.
"Family mealtime is a special-case scenario. It is an important moment for family members to sit together, have food, share their life, and connect with each other," said Jiawen Wu, the study's lead author and a Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication at the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences .
Though the study did not unpack the context of media use by parents and children, the fact that more than 70% of household consume media during family mealtimes is substantial and deserves more research attention, according to Matthew Lapierre, an associate professor in the Department of Communication and the study's senior author.
Wu said parents tend to assume that they are giving sufficient attention to their children by just being at the table, but the study suggests that parents' mere physical presence can turn into absence if they are consistently immersed in media consumption.
The study also found that parent and child media use at mealtime is not linked to each other. In other words, if a parent was using media during the meal, it doesn't tell if the child was more likely to use media too and vice versa.
"That's surprising because we had assumed that media use would covary among parents and children," Lapierre said.
As clinicians work on therapeutic interventions for curbing media usage, they may need to target parents and children separately, rather than assuming that changing parents' behavior will influence children's behavior, Wu said.
The study, conducted as an online survey involving parents and children ages 4-10, took various demographic factors into account – such as age, sex, ethnicity, single-child household and single-parent household. The type of device – large-screen or small-screen – was also a factor.
Among all the demographic factors, the most evident and consistent predictor of media use, according to the study, was ethnicity, Wu said. African American parents, for example, reported more shared use of media, but less parent-only use of media. It means, when a parent was African American, they were more likely to consume media together with their children, rather than watching something alone.
The case however was different with Asian American parents, who reported more child-only media use. In other words, in an Asian American household, parents and children used media individually and not together.
"We have evidence that shared use and individual use could have different impact on children, as shared use can also be a means of parental influence in children's media behavior," Wu said.
The study also examined the digital devices that parents and children preferred to use for their media consumption. It turned out that parents and children showed both active and passive media usage. Parents for the most part actively used smartphones, followed by passive consumption such as watching TV and using small-screen devices like tablets. Children were doing both too: actively playing games and passively watching content.
Cecilia Sada Garibay, one of the study's co-authors and a Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication, said that the devices determine whether media is used individually or together. While watching TV is normally done through a large screen where all members of the family can watch, devices such as smartphones, tablets and portable videogame consoles have small screens, facilitating an individualized experience.
"All forms of media use can affect communication at the table, so the best advice is to turn off the media devices before mealtime. However, with TV, since everyone is watching it, it can at least become a source of conversation," Sada Garibay said.
There is reason to believe that media negatively affects children and families, Lapierre said, but we don't know enough to definitively say that media use is negative as it could be replacing conflict at mealtime, for instance.
"Nevertheless, I do believe that our findings can help health professionals identify families to discuss mealtime media usage with, as families in general want to be more mindful of media consumption during mealtimes," Lapierre said.
JAMA Pediatrics
10.1001/jamapediatrics.2026.2182
Survey
People
Parent and Child Media Use During Family Meals in US Households
15-Jun-2026