Written by, Oct. 18 -- Akshita Pandey, Muskan Shah, Moitrayee Das

At 8 p.m., the dining table is set. There is food in the kitchen, four people in the house, and yet nobody is sitting down together.

One person is still at work. Another is attending an online class. Someone has ordered food and is eating in their room. The youngest member of the family is watching a show on a phone. Nothing is necessarily wrong. No argument has taken place. No one has left the family. And yet, something has changed.

The family meal has long been treated as one of the small rituals that holds families together. But its disappearance is more complicated than the familiar story of a simpler past giving way to a disconnected present. Family dinners were nev...