The Game That Got My Family to Put Down Their Phones

From my experience, there’s not much social about social media. I’ve spent many afternoons with my grandchildren, watching them with their heads down, working their thumbs on their phone screens as if it were an Olympic sport. That makes me worry about their social skills.

So, to engage their minds, I gathered them around the kitchen table to play a “conversation starter” game. There were three grandchildren, plus one boyfriend — ranging in age from 13 to 22. We set our phones aside and focused on each other. Surprisingly, there were no moans and groans. Quite the opposite. They were eager to get started.

A number of these conversation card games are on the market, including two I have: TableTopics and Relish. Others include Talking Point, Tales and Delve Deck. They rely on the common premise that reading printed questions to each other will spur discussions that wouldn’t occur organically. Indeed, as we pulled cards from the stack, the questions took us down unexpected paths. A question about TV shows somehow led to politics. One about favorite foods had us pondering the benefits of olive oil, which led to talk of organic foods and turned into a robust conversation about climate change.

This continued throughout the afternoon and into the evening. Several times I found myself laughing until tears rolled down my cheeks.

Even the debates were fun. One conversation card about music showed me that every generation thinks its tunes are the best. But, of course, we all know the music of the ’50s and ’60s truly was the best!

Our varied life experiences became apparent, too. I talked to my grandchildren about writing checks and what it meant when one bounced. They found this as confusing as I find cryptocurrency.

I listened to each of them explain how they wanted to be remembered by their great-great grandchildren. Turns out they had thought about their future; their answers gave me new insight into their personalities. Sure, I’ve known them each since birth, but now I've got an inkling of how each grandchild saw themselves. And I began to see them as full people, rather than just as my grandchildren. In turn, I think they saw me as having a life before becoming a grandmother — even as they found it strange that I survived growing up without text messages, memes and “likes.” (The youngest actually thought I had been born before cars and TV. I set him straight on that.)

After wrapping up our session, my eldest grandson wanted to take the cards to play with his friends. He said they often sit around and don’t know what to say to each other. That’s exactly my fear for our younger generations. And it isn’t just that they don’t talk to each other; in many cases, their parents don’t talk to them. I often see families at coffee shops and restaurants where everyone is sitting around the table on their phones.

Our children and grandchildren have a great deal to say, and they need to be heard. It is up to us to keep conversation alive. In fact, it’s in the cards.

AARP essays share a point of view in the author’s voice, drawn from expertise or experience, and do not necessarily reflect the views of AARP.