The laptop as guest - and sometimes the centerpiece - at dinner parties gets the Observer treatment today. We're all too familiar with friends staring at their Blackberry/iPhone/ Sidekick devices during social situations, but some might tell those toting a Macbook to a dinner party to just stay at home...or not? After all, they do come in handy when a debate is being settled (say, how many degrees of Kevin Bacon is Alan Thicke?). As long as everyone can get back in to real person-on-person conversation and re-enter the real world, the temporary tech guest shouldn't be too imposing.
The reality is that laptops are the new television, and just as TV-watching and dinner didn't mix at first way back when, soon enough the TV dinner was invented. We'd have to agree that while it's nice to have access to the internet for a debate, sitting around staring at YouTube videos definitely takes away from authentic conversation. The Observer breaks it down thusly:
And yet surely when the laptop comes to dinner, a certain sociability quotient is lost. Like the great democratic equalizer it is, the Internet ensures that you, the party guest, don’t actually have to be funny, you just have to have seen something funny. That you are merely the vehicle for this humor matters little, because the end result is the same: Everyone laughs! As a dinner guest, the laptop is very gracious about deflecting credit onto the person who invited it to the table. Which is, perhaps, why it keeps getting invited back.
The experts (on manners) seem to have a compromise. Thomas P. Farley, editor of Town & Country magazine’s anthology Modern Manners: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Social Graces, tells the Observer that while one shouldn't get out the laptop to show the latest viral video, that “people should feel free to describe what they saw on YouTube. Put it into words" (ie: "Well you see there's this chipmunk...wait no it's a prairie dog, and it's just sort of...being dramatic.")
So where do you stand...are there boundaries for where you log on and off?
and also for the record.. Don McKellar is awesome!
guest
Using a computer at a party is fucking lame...
REALLY fucking lame...
..and I'm a total computer dork and do computer dork stuff for a living.
Seriously, get an 8 ball, some alcohol and get laid..
matty
maybe i'm just old fashioned but the only media i use during parties is my ipod hooked up to a stereo.
socializing usually makes things a lot more fun for me. I would also have no problem politely asking someone to put their laptop away at a party I threw.
Alan Thicke was in Childstar (2004) with Don McKellar.
Don McKellar was in Where the Truth Lies (2005) with Kevin Bacon.
anopneumous
My idea of a fun get-together is everyone around the dinner table, laptops out, logged into an AIM chat room.
You are now logged into: "Dinner Party 1928457743920"
metsgurl284: hey alex can u pass the salt?
SoccrJockAlex: yeah sure
brendasmith: im going to the kitchen, anyone want anything?
x amyangel x: jess, this chicken is amazing
jj2045: thanks lol i can give u the recipe if u want
SoccrJockAlex: man no one likes my potato salad?
SoccrJockAlex: oh brenda could u get me a water
x amyangel x: oh i like it!
gobigred14: whered u get it?
jj2045: its fanastic
jj2045: *fantastic
SoccrJockAlex: morton williams lol
brendasmith: back
metsgurl284: wb
SoccrJockAlex: thx for the water
The only downside is that we don't know what to do when the wireless is down.
j0sh
This past memorial day, I invited about eight people to my house in the hamptons for a weekend of relaxation. for the entire three days, there were no less than five laptops permanently open and connected to the internet on my dining room table. It looked like a goddamn computer lab. Not to mention, the publisher of this website was the biggest culprit. Some people need to disconnect every now and then...
guest
I actually sit at the dinner table with my laptop and my wife brings hers.
Pass the ketchup, kthxpls.
DCfist
Nothing bugs me more than having conversation with someone when all of a sudden, their phone rings and they take it and walk off in that new conversation. Or even worse, they chat with their buddy right in front of you as you stand there awkwardly not knowing if you should leave or not. Fuck that S.
guest
who brings a laptop to a dinner party?
You bring wine, yes. unless the host gets to keep the laptop, then by all means.
guest
My guess is that people who bring laptops to parties are people who are not bringing other person with them.
guest
To me, the whole point of getting together with people is to turn off the TV, the news, the net, the phones, the blackberries and -yes- the powerbooks. If you value the people you're with and the conversation you're having, disagreements over facts and the like are simply part of the fun and hooking up to the internet will be more of a distraction than anything else. Connecting to something outside of the circle of people you're in at that moment shows that you're placing value outside that circle, even if you're using the powerbook to illuminate or explain what you're saying. Imperfect as it is, conversation with friends over dinner or drinks should be valued as a thing in of itself - much like a day spent enjoying nature or sitting at a movie.In my opinion, allowing other information streams into those situations dilutes their purity making them less valuable, less memorable and less easy to enjoy.
If you truly value the people you're with, put away the gadgets and concentrate on them. If you're eating with a bunch of chuckleheads, however, by all means log in.
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The laptop as guest - and sometimes the centerpiece - at dinner parties gets the 
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