Sharing a Meal with Others Is the Best Form of Quality Time, Survey Reveals

Rachel Wermager
·2 min read

The holidays are heavily associated with spending time with the ones you love. Although friends and families all gather in different ways, such as baking and decorating gingerbread cookies or watching classic Christmas movies, there is one activity that almost every generation agrees is the ultimate way to spend quality time together: sharing a meal.

HireAHelper, a company that helps customers find local movers, surveyed more than 1,000 people about the time they spent with friends, roommates, significant others, and family. Respondents were asked how they prefer to spend time with friends and family, as well as how often people share meals with others under the same roof.

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According to the survey’s results, 91% of baby boomers and 88% of millennials considered sharing a meal the best way to spend quality time, though 89% Gen Xers cited watching a movie or TV together as their top choice. However, 88% of Gen Xers did pick sharing a meal as the best activity for bonding, which makes it a close second pick.

Some other top quality time activities from the survey were playing video games together, drinking, sharing memes (millennials were the top supporters of this activity, unsurprisingly), and simply being in the same room as one another without interacting.

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Although any quality time together is time well spent, there's actually evidence that sharing a meal is an important, healthy family activity. (One study notes it can even improve the physical and mental health of children.) The HireAHelper survey also found that housemates who shared daily meals together were twice as likely to say they had a good relationship as those who did not eat together at all.

So, consider putting down the phones, turning off the TV, and picking up your forks for some quality time around the dinner table. Then after dinner, you can turn on the screens.