You're right. If you have other frequent means of socializing and dinner is just a time for food in mouths, then devices at the table aren't the end of the worl

You're right. If you have other frequent means of socializing and dinner is just a time for food in mouths, then devices at the table aren't the end of the world. But there is a reason many people like to use dinner as a mandatory point of family social contact: it keeps you on a daily schedule. You can multitask: listening to stories while you chew. And it provides some resilience to changes. Like marriage, there is some value to committing to something like this "in sickness and in health". It's nice that you all want to play Catan now, but what happens when your teenager decides they don't like games anymore? Or what happens if your spouse isn't loving your approach to competition these days? Or if someone just doesn't feel like socializing? Everyone needs to eat, so in that way it's resilient to these shifting winds. If nothing else, you can sit and chew and listen to your family's voices. So I'm not disagreeing with you: there are other ways to achieve the same ends that might be more efficient or more comfortable for your family. But there are also good reasons to sacrifice a little of that in order to fix a ritual that can pay off in unpredictable ways.