Smartphones are almost always present during shared meals, often shifting attention away from the people at the table. Attempts to address this typically rely on rules, restrictions, or explicit feedback, which can easily disrupt the social atmosphere they aim to protect. Dinner by Candlelight explores an alternative approach: making smartphone use visible within a social setting without correcting, judging, or interrupting the moment.
The project uses the candle as a familiar ritual object associated with presence and shared attention. Each participant has a digital candle displayed on their smartphone. When the phone is used, the candle gradually shrinks and does not reset during the meal. In this way, individual phone use becomes subtly visible within the group, without notifications, warnings, or instructions.
Rather than aiming to reduce phone use directly, the design focuses on social readability. By embedding feedback into an existing ritual, the intervention allows awareness or conversation to emerge naturally, depending on the social context. The project was developed through a Research Through Design approach, exploring and testing multiple prototypes during small, informal dinner settings. Observations, conversations, and a short questionnaire informed the final design, revealing that subtle, persistent feedback was experienced as calm and non-intrusive, while still socially meaningful.
Dinner by Candlelight demonstrates how design can support social interaction not by steering behavior, but by creating space for reflection within shared moments. Its effectiveness is intentionally context-dependent, working best in intimate settings where social cues and rituals already play a role.
