Digital Commensality: Eating and Drinking in the Company of Technology

Abstract

Commensality is a key aspect of social dining. However, previous research has identified a number of pros and cons associated with the incorporation of digital technology into eating and drinking episodes. For instance, those who are distracted by digital technology may eat/drink more (that is, they may overconsume) as a result of their failure to attend to the food-related sensations that are thought to cue the termination of eating. Similarly, it has often been suggested that the use of mobile devices at mealtimes can disrupt the more commensal aspects of dining/drinking (at least among those who are physically present together). At the same time, however, looking to the future, it seems clear that digital technologies also hold the promise of delivering opportunities for enhanced multisensory experiential dining. For instance, they might be used to match the auditory, visual, or audiovisual entertainment to the eating/drinking episode (e.g., think only about watching a Bollywood movie while eating a home-delivery Indian meal, say). Indeed, given the growing societal problems associated with people dining by themselves, there are a number of routes by which digital technologies may increasingly help to connect the solo diner with physically co-located, remote, or even virtual dining partners. In this review of the literature, our focus is specifically on the role of technology in inhibiting/facilitating the more pleasurable social aspects of dining, what one might call "digital commensality." The focus is primarily on Westernized adults with reasonable access to, and familiarity with, digital technologies.

The Psychology of Mukbang Watching: A Scoping Review of the Academic and Non-academic Literature

“…Several studies have theorized that mukbang watching might have negative consequences for the viewers including (i) increased consumption of food because of social comparison or mimicry; (ii) alteration of viewers' perception of food consumption and thinness, eating, health, table manners, and eating manners because of modelling of bad behaviours; and (iii) obesity and different eating disorders because of glorifying binge eating (Bruno and Chung 2017;Donnar 2017;Hong and Park 2018;Park 2018;Shipman 2019;Spence et al 2019). On the other hand, mukbang watching might promote positive effects for viewers including alleviation of social isolation via creating a sense of belongingness to a community, subjective closeness for those who seek companionship and a dinner partner, and fulfilment of physical and sentimental hunger for those who are on a diet and/or live in single-person households (Donnar 2017;Hong and Park 2018).…”

“…In a review study about digital commensality (i.e. the practice of eating together), Spence et al (2019) argued how mukbang could be used to psychologically facilitate commensality in order to cope with eating alone. Their main concern was that there had been few empirical studies on how mukbang watching might affect viewers.…”

“…They also questioned whether mukbang could provide similar benefits for an individual's mental health that were related to physically dining together with others. Despite the scarcity of research on psychological predictors and consequences of mukbang phenomenon, they concluded that watching mukbang while dining could potentially provide viewers a sense of digital commensality (Spence et al 2019), and which could foster feelings of affective connection with other individuals. Hakimey and Yazdanifard (2015) examined the interaction of South Korean culture and mukbang phenomenon by reviewing newspaper coverage concerning mukbangers.…”

“…Papers identified in the present scoping review also found that mukbang watching can lead to potential desired and undesired consequences for the viewers. For instance, Spence et al (2019) theorized that one of the potentially harmful aspects of mukbang might be that individuals' consumption norms could easily be affected by others' consumption. They argued that individuals were susceptible to consuming more than they normally would if they see another individual consuming a large high-calorie meal because of social comparison or mimicry.…”

Development and Validation of the Mukbang Addiction Scale

“…Several studies have concluded that mukbang watching might have negative consequences for the viewers including (i) increased consumption of food because of social comparison or mimicry, (ii) alteration of viewers' perception of food consumption and thinness, eating, health, table manners, and eating manners because of modelling of bad behaviours, and (iii) obesity and different eating disorders because of the glorification of binge eating (Bruno and Chung 2017;Donnar 2017;Hong and Park 2018;Park 2018;Shipman 2019;Spence et al 2019). It has also been claimed that mukbang watching may also become addictive for a minority of people who use mukbang for social compensation (Malm 2014).…”