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6/22/20261 min read
Will AI push us back toward family dinners?
I hope so.
For all our sakes.
One of the unexpected things I have been thinking about lately comes from The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt.
Haidt describes what he calls:
"The great rewiring of childhood."
That phrase stopped me in my tracks.
Because long before smartphones became a topic of public debate, something felt off.
Years ago, I insisted the smartphones stayed away from the dinner table.
The television went off.
We talked.
Not because I had read research papers.
Not because I was following psychologists.
Not because I saw the future.
It simply felt important.
Now I wonder if many parents and grandparents had the same instinct.
Perhaps we sensed that some things should not be surrendered to a screen.
Conversation.
Storytelling.
Debate.
Listening.
Eye contact.
The ability to sit with people we care about and hear about their day.
Haidt's work argues that smartphones and social media fundamentally changed the environment in which children grew up. The result was not simply new technology. It was less time spent developing the social skills, resilience, confidence, and relationships that previous generations often built face-to-face.
The irony is that AI may end up reminding us of something we forgot.
As machines become better at generating content, answering questions, creating images, and automating routine work, the uniquely human skills become more valuable, not less valuable.
Trust.
Judgment.
Empathy.
Leadership.
Conversation.
Relationships.
Community.
The things that matter most may be the things technology cannot truly replace.
Perhaps the next phase of the AI era will not be about spending more time with machines.
Perhaps it will be about rediscovering the value of spending time with each other.
I find myself wondering if the ultimate response to an increasingly digital world may be surprisingly simple.
More conversations.
More community.
More shared meals.
More time with family.
More time looking at each other instead of looking at screens.
If AI helps us remember that, it may produce an unexpected benefit that nobody saw coming.
I certainly hope so.
For all our sakes.
Bob McTaggart ironically edited with AI. who knew
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