
DATE: Thursday, November 13, 1997           TAG: 9711130459

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LORRAINE EATON, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   70 lines

FAMILIES OFTEN SET A PLACE AT THE TABLE FOR THE TELEVISION

Who's America's most popular dinner guest?

For about half of the families in the country, it's whoever happens to be on the tube.

In The Gallup Youth Survey released this week, half the teens surveyed said that the last time they ate dinner with their family, the television was turned on. The numbers are up significantly from 1990, when a similar Gallup poll found that 39 percent of teens were watching television while eating with family.

``My kids love to eat with Ricki Lake or Oprah,'' said Sue Sanderson of Norfolk, a parent of two teens. During the week, Sanderson's family eats in two shifts, one after school, when the ``ravenous,'' television-watching teens eat and she nibbles, and one in the evening, when she eats with her husband and the children occasionally stop by to nibble.

``I think television is their way to just sort of chill, before they start doing homework,'' she said.

But when the whole family convenes for dinner on Sundays, television is not invited. That is sacred time.

``It's a tradition, just a part of us, like going to church, and you wouldn't watch television during that time,'' Sanderson said.

Channel-surfing while eating may seem like a waste of quality time, but having the television on at dinner isn't always bad, said Frances J. Hassencahl, assistant professor of communications and theater arts at Old Dominion University.

``It depends,'' she said. ``A lot of people think of TV like they do a radio - it's background noise and people are not watching it. That's not a problem.''

That's the way it works at Rodney Diaz's house. Rodney, his 16-year-old sister and his mother sit down to dinner in the kitchen of their Virginia Beach home every weeknight. His father usually cooks, but has to leave for work before the family eats. The TV in the living room can be seen from the table, and the remote control is as much a part of the setting as the silverware.

For Rodney, television serves as a sort of adjunct dinner companion. Without it, ``if I was bored with my sister's and mother's conversation, I'd have nowhere to turn,'' he said.

Intermittent television viewing at the dinner table might also be OK, Hassencahl said, because television can spark conversation.

``This depends on the creativity of the parent,'' Hassencahl said.

Take a newscast about the recent brawl at Woodrow Wilson High School in Portsmouth, she said. Parents could ask their children if they think that incidents like this might happen at their school, or if they've ever been in uncomfortable situations like that or just what they think about the whole incident in general.

Television is a problem, Hassencahl said, when everyone's attention at the table is consumed by what's on the tube. ``If people are watching it, clearly they aren't talking to each other,'' she said. ``Then there is the whole issue of whether just by spending time together and sharing an experience is really meaningful time together.

``If parents just sit there and grunt, well, it's probably not.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

TABLE TALK

The last time you and your parents ate dinner or supper together,

which, if any, of the following things did you do?

Talked about school - 66%

Washed the dishes afterward - 65%

Helped prepare the meal - 62%

Said grace or prayer before the meal - 56%

Talked about family problems and interests - 53%

Source: The Gallup Youth Survey. Numbers are based on telephone

interviews nationwide with about 500 teens ages 13 to 17.