As a millennial, the concept of public school lunch not being loud is weird to me! I always remember the constant chatter of school lunch. Definitely had my share of hearty shared laughs, and heated conversations during lunchtime.

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DavidPeiffer 11 hours ago | parent [-]

I graduated in 2011. Smart phones were rare, but dumb phones were quite common.

The lunch room was quite loud. To keep people from being in their own world on their phones too much, my lunch table had a rule that if you laugh out loud at something on your phone, you had to share it with the table. It was quite effective, though somewhat embarrassing from time to time.

	▲	mc3301 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		In the early 2000s, when everyone had a phone but no smart phones, we had this "thing" at the college bar: Sitting around the table with some beers and friends, everyone put their phones in the center of the table. First one to touch their phone had to buy the next round of drinks. It was effective. I've tried similar recently, but people are less enthusiastic about the idea.