By: Lalla Maiga
Jacqueline Botterill is an Associate Professor at Brock University and communication researcher. In her research, she explores how the phone entangles itself into our daily eating rituals. During the Food Matters and Materialities Conference, Jacqueline shared some current research and unique insights from her discussions with participants. I interviewed her following her presentation, and she walked me through the food prints we leave on our phones and what it means to have technologies at the table.
Credits: Illustration by Kit Chokly.
LM: How do you define a ‘foodprint’?
JB: I was talking about when we touch our phones and touch our food. When we touch our phones, there is a basic transfer of fingers to the phone. The food print is the print that is left behind. It’s just like other prints we go looking at, such as bird prints. I found a unique metaphor to acknowledge that there was something very material going on. My research sample of twenty-five people was small, but everyone mentioned the sticky and smudgy print they left on their phones.
LM: What got you interested in your research on smartphones and food consumption?
JB: As a communication researcher, I entered into food thinking about food advertising. I have also been influenced by consumer culture, which is how people integrate commodities into their lives. These two paths have crossed into thinking about the phone and food, like in advertising, where we study a text such as how an advertisement influences diet. But here, I was just interested in how people hold their phones and how it gets spilled on by the most basic mundane things in everyday life. It is important to look in those places because we all go, “Oh, I do that. I’ve dropped my phone in my drink.” We do not stop to think about how on a daily basis we allow our devices to interact with our food.
LM: Your research describes how participants engage in the practice of adapting their phone use to food matters. What do you mean by that? And what do you mean by a ‘food matter’?
JB: In my interviews, people talked about how food—the smudges, stickiness—gets on their phones while they are eating or how they negotiated their phone while they were eating. For me, those two things were mostly associated with ‘matters.’ The smudges, stickiness, and ill-ease associated with the food print feel dirty to some people. This is also culturally bound because there are a lot of other cultures that eat with their hands. I was interested in taking up the spirit of this conference, the idea that food is a material, which is very different from reading something. Food is very concrete. And so, I thought about ‘food matters’ in relation to the car, a study I did with eating in the car, but I thought, “I’m seeing similar things going on here” with the phone and eating. Digging through the layers of my participants answers, I discovered that there are anxieties attached to having our phones around us all the time at the table.
LM: Was there any specific response from an interviewee that stood out to you?
JB: Oh yes, especially the bodily responses. There was one young woman who was comparing TV to the phone and eating in front of the TV, and she just said, “Oh, I love the TV because I don’t have to hold it up.” Her life was intense with work and university; bringing the food to her mouth was enough to satisfy her. I thought that that was a really powerful thing.
What I also found powerful were the different rules people had around the phone at the dinner table. My sample was small, but I did say in my presentation conclusion there are generational differences. The younger generation has a more complex relationship with their devices. Everyone balances adjusting (with) constantly changing spaces with these technologies, asking “How do I adjust?” and “fit in”? For example, when someone has a fight with their partner at the table, we have become okay with it overriding our meal.
LM: Your research participants mention a mindfulness when describing how their phone use changes around strangers or unfamiliar others. How would you describe that mindfulness?
JB: The research participants I spoke to were very reflective. I wonder if it relates to the stress people report because everybody is kind of very mindful of who’s in the room or “how am I behaving?” People spoke about these spaces where they could let themselves relax. Still, if there was an incident, the mindfulness would just come on instantaneously where they considered, “Oh no, this is unfamiliar. I have to be careful about my phone.” Thinking about our actions with our phone, such as slipping it down the table, brings about a mindfulness. At least when people began to reflect on that, I saw that they were articulating very complex text-based things. I think some of the thoughtfulness is struggling to try and create a pattern on how to use our smartphones with food appropriately. It speaks of how we bring in social norms. If the social norms are not already there, we create them. Some of that thoughtfulness is struggling to try and create a pattern because there is no more, in classic Western culture – here’s your fork, here’s your spoon, tuck in your napkin – or whatever those old rules were. They’re now in flux. I think that that’s calling upon people to really think because it’s way more complex than that.
LM: What is the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic social distancing rules on creating new social norms?
JB: This is one thing I would like to work on. Having your phone is like a little break from being alone. Picking up the phone and snap, you are not alone. I have not quite unpacked this, but I am interested in exploring this further.
Thank you, Jacqueline, for participating in the interview and sharing your research at the crossroads of the smartphone and food.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.