When I was growing up, we used to play a game: If you could invite any five people from history to dinner, who would it be? That game seems to have lost popularity of late, and I’m beginning to think I know why. These days, everybody I know invites the same guest to dinner. Who’s this ubiquitous invitee? The answer is sitting in your pocket.

Google.

Few rules of contemporary society seem more unanimous right now than the strict admonition against using a smart phone at mealtime. Of the 40,569 surveyors who rated restaurants for the 2011 Zagat guide to New York City restaurants, 64 percent said that texting, checking e-mail or talking on the phone is rude and inappropriate in a restaurant.

“Emily Post’s Table Manners for Kids,” published in 2009, says bluntly, “Do NOT use your cell phone or any other electronic devices at the table.” As Cindy Post Senning, the book’s co-author, told The New York Times last year, “The family meal is a social event, not a food ingestion event.”

Laurie David, the Oscar-winning producer and a Hollywood doyenne, goes even further in “The Family Dinner,” her new cookbook manifesto. “Do not answer the phone at dinner,” she writes. “Do not bring a phone or BlackBerry to the table. No ringing, vibrating, answering, or texting allowed.”

How polite is checking?

But wait! What if a few clicks of the smart phone can answer a question, solve a dispute or elucidate that thoughtful point you were making? What if that PDA is not being used to escape a conversation but to enhance it?

Consider the case of the banana split. Not long ago, my mother decided to make a big production over the first banana splits for her four young grandchildren. After dinner, she pulled out a pad of paper. “Now what type of ice cream would you like on your banana split?” she asked. Mint chocolate chip, one person screamed. Raspberry sorbet, another added. Dulce de leche.

“Hold on,” I said. “You can’t make a banana split with all these froufrou flavors. A banana split has to have strawberry, chocolate and vanilla ice cream.”

An uproar ensued, at which point I whipped out my BlackBerry and proposed I look up the origin of the dessert and ascertain the founders’ original intent. An even greater clamor then erupted. As my father put it, how could I ruin this warm family moment with something as unfeeling, untrustworthy and unhurried as a Google search? But, I countered, wasn’t the point of the exercise to teach the children a bit of Americana? Who was right?

Many people I’ve encountered clearly believe that the blanket prohibition of cell phones at the table also extends to checking, say, what year Qatar will host the World Cup, what is Teddy Roosevelt’s relationship to Franklin or just how old Cher really is.

Another reason to keep search engines out of the salad course is that they have the unfortunate tendency to produce a winner. A friend of mine was recently having a meal with his wife’s sister and her new fiance. My friend asked his future brother-in-law what song the couple would use as their first dance. “Let My Love Open the Door” by the Who, he said. “That was actually on Pete Townshend’s solo album,” my friend corrected. The fiance promptly pulled out his cell phone. After Googling the answer, my friend admitted curtly, “You’re right,” before proceeding to sulk for the rest of the meal.

Despite these downsides, I’ve found far more people willing to support bringing much-needed truth into dinner-table debates. These advocates include some of the most vocal critics of technology’s intrusion on contemporary life. Jaron Lanier, a Silicon Valley inventor who pioneered the term “virtual reality,” warned in his jeremiad, “You Are Not a Gadget,” published earlier this year, that technology is limiting the ability of humans to think for themselves.

Still, even Lanier, a well-known critic of Facebook and other social media, told me that brandishing my BlackBerry at an ice cream party was not a threat to social cohesion. “In my opinion, if your wife tells you not to Google at dinner, then she’s right,” he said. “If anybody else tells you, then you’re right.” I chuckled knowingly.

“My answer was not a joke,” he said. “It was intended to be instructive about the right way to deal with things. The moment the question becomes about the technology instead of about the people, then something has gone horribly wrong.”

Going bananas

As for our ice cream episode, I did push forward with my search and quickly landed on a Wikipedia entry that said the banana split was invented in 1904 by a 23-year-old apprentice pharmacist at Tassel Pharmacy in Latrobe, Pa.

“The classic banana split is made with scoops of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream served in a row between the split banana,” the entry said. “Pineapple topping is spooned over the strawberry ice cream, chocolate syrup over the vanilla and strawberry topping over the chocolate. It is garnished with crushed nuts, whipped cream and maraschino cherries.”

Having proved my case, I gloated only mildly, and we all traipsed into the kitchen, only to find that the ice cream my mother had carefully laid out on the counter had completely melted into soup. My daughters quickly dissolved into tears. I may have won the battle, but I still missed the boat.