Rohit Ashok Khot
RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Our eating practices are increasingly overshadowed by the presence of screen-based media technologies that conflict with the ideologies of mindful eating. However, little is known about whether and how screens influence our eating behaviors. To contribute to this understanding, we present a rich account of the dining practices of ten participants with and without the screen. Our study revealed that eating with screens was found more enjoyable than eating alone. Screens can influence one’s awareness of hunger and other behaviors like chewing rate and food gaze, whereas screen-media did not trigger any judgements for food. Drawing on the study insights, we highlight the role of technology to support bodily awareness, savoring, a non-judgmental attitude to eating, and on rethinking distractions as companions. The outlined considerations encourage a creative yet careful take on making mindful eating more accessible within the realities of screen-based dining cultures.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3491102.3517651
The ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (https://chi2022.acm.org/)