BACK TO THE TABLE
Two years ago, Daniel Moss arrived in Leeds, England, to start a new job, knowing nobody in the city. A local football team seemed like an obvious way to meet people, but sports had never been his strength, and the thought of looking foolish kept him away. It was a colleague who told him about a café near the office that held a games evening every week. "For the first few weeks, I only watched," Moss recalls. "After that, I went every Thursday and sat down to play with whoever was at my table. Those strangers are now my closest friends."(lines 1–6)
People have been playing board games for at least 5,000 years: game boards of that age have been found in Egyptian tombs. For centuries, a board on the kitchen table was a normal part of family life, especially during long winter evenings. That changed after 1950. Television arrived in most homes, video games followed, and the old games were slowly pushed to the back of the cupboard or thrown away. By the 1990s, parents had a new worry: their children were spending hours alone with a screen. Schools and libraries responded by opening clubs whose aim was to bring young people back together around a table.(lines 7–13)
The hobby's greatest comeback took place during the Covid pandemic. Sociologist Dr. Ruth Klein describes the situation: "For weeks, families could not leave home. Cinemas, gyms and restaurants had all closed, and after a day of online lessons and video meetings, the last thing anyone wanted in the evening was another screen. Old games came out of the cupboards, new ones were ordered, and in some countries the best-selling titles disappeared from the shops within days." Researchers expected the trend to end with the lockdowns. It did not. Many of the new players are still playing today, sales remain high, and designers publish thousands of new games every year.(lines 14–21)
Families are not the only ones playing anymore. All over the world, companies have started using games to train new employees and to turn groups of workers into strong teams. Klein offers an example from working life: "In a large office, people from different departments may hardly ever talk to each other. Put them together for an afternoon of games where they must plan and solve problems as a team, and they usually find it much easier to cooperate at work the next day." Some firms even hire specialists to design such games.(lines 22–27)
Still, Klein believes the real value of games lies in local neighborhoods, where many public libraries now run free game nights for people of all ages. She has spent many happy evenings at them. "A teenager shows an older woman how to play a new card game, and she teaches him an old strategy game in return. Two people from different generations, who would otherwise never have met, end up laughing together. When neighbors keep meeting around the same table, loneliness becomes less common. If you ask me, that is the most valuable thing games give us today."(lines 28–34)