Kerby Anderson

Columnist Bob Greene noticed a connection between TV Dinners and smartphones. In fact, he says the 1950s meal was a gateway drug for screen addiction. He believes that our zombie-like addiction to screens has its origin decades ago.

It used to be that you would eat dinner and then move into the den to watch television. But soon there were advertisements for “TV trays.” These metal trays with tubular legs could be unfolded in front of the TV set so you could watch while you eat.

Nebraska-based Swanson company then developed what came to be called “TV Dinners.” Frozen meals were arranged in heat-and serve aluminum trays with three compartments. The main course was fried chicken, turkey, pot roast, or Swiss steak. Soon, they added a fourth compartment for dessert: the apple crisp.

Bob Greene says, “the seductive power of the screens, beckoning families from their dining rooms, was unstoppable.” The Swanson company took out newspaper ads encouraging Americans to watch their favorite TV shows and enjoy a TV Dinner.

He believes that “the TV Dinner was an early, if unintended, step toward our current world in which unblinking people can’t look away from the screens they carry everywhere, oblivious to what is going on around them.”

Long before we had smartphones, I recommended to parents that they not have the television on during dinner. That should be a family time for discussion and encouragement. When the TV is blaring in the background, very little family bonding could take place.

Of course, now we have to fight to get people to put down their phones during any meal, whether at home or in a restaurant. Bob Greene may be on to something. We might have been training a generation to look at screen even before those screens were on our phones.