" It was the mid-1800s when family members began to face one another during mealtime. Before then, they ate side by side, quickly and quietly. “Food was fuel,” according to Abigail Carroll, “socializing was secondary—if it happened at all.” Dinnertime conversation did not become “a standard expectation and eventually a carefully cultivated and highly prized art” until the nineteenth century. "

― Jordan Shapiro , The New Childhood: Raising Kids to Thrive in a Connected World