Do you eat at a table with your family or from a tray watching TV?

I'm on year 20 without TV.  I always eat alone.

It's just me and my daughter, and she works nights. I usually eat on the couch watching TV. I use the coffee table as my TV tray. :)

We always used to eat together, and I think my brother's and sisters' families still do. Certainly do  when in company.

Not sure why O-uknow would be puzzled by eating from a tray in front of the telly. I think many still do exactly that. It doesn't matter if the screen in on a television or is a computer monitor, doesn't matter what the images are  - the effect is the same.

I wonder if that is responsible for many people having not a clue how, or being too idle to, use a knife and fork properly hence easily; instead attempting instead to eat a solid meal with just a fork held upside-down, even when sitting at a table. Is this sloppy, clumsy and physically awkward habit born of years of having to use one hand to hold the tray steady on the lap?

If they can't use so basic and simple a pair of tools as a knife and fork correctly, in the way these tools were designed to be used, I wonder if how many of them could ever develop such advanced practical skills as putting up a shelf or replacing a mortice-lock*!  

There is another social problem that years of mutual self-exclusion dictated by room and screen may present: inability to join properly in worthwhile social occasions such as restaurant meals, whether family "do", romantic candle-lit date or large-scale club annual dinner. If so then the self-excluding are the losers because they will have limited their social skills and confidence. Perhaps the question is not on whether you eat with the rest of your family, but whether you have chosen to limit your social skills? Or do you believe you do not need to be able to mix with others because all your "friends" are only Facebook ones you never genuinely know or meet, and you always dine alone in your bed-room to ensure catching the arrival of the latest Tweet or soap-opera episode in peace? 


*(Was going to use "change a car headlamp bulb", but some modern cars are now so poorly designed that what should be simple road-side routines have become almost full-scale professional garage operations!)  

When my sisters and I still lived with our parents, it was usually hard to get a word in edgeways once those two started telling us all about their days!

Still use a proper table and cutlery now, I do.

In married life before having children we always ate at the table. Once we started a family we continued this tradition. Eating together as a family was very important and we never allowed the technology of the time to intervene.