Is it OK to discretely check your smartphone at a dinner party? Is it acceptable to take some cellphone photos of the table settings and other guests and tweet them live from the party without asking others to use their likeness? Katherine Rosman looks at how people are policing these issues. She writes about one group of friends, for example, who, in order to force themselves to pay attention to each other during dinner at a restaurant, took their smartphones and stacked them tower-like in the center of the table and agreed that the first person to grab for a phone had to pick up the tab. Other people deal with this issue by imposing no-technology-at-the-table rules in their homes, even if only to avoid clutter and make room for serving meals.

The Wall Street Journal, 7/5/2012