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Prego \u2013 as in the pasta sauce company \u2013 has a new marketing strategy that involves customers recording their dinner conversations using a small device they place on the table.<\/span><\/p>\n The Campbells-owned company announced the debut of its \u201cConnection Keeper\u201d on Monday.<\/span><\/p>\n This pasta-lid-shaped device is meant to serve as a \u201csimple, screen-free way to capture the real conversations that happen around the dinner table.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWith just the press of a button, families can record meaningful moments and relive them later \u2013 without phones, screens, or distractions getting in the way,\u201d the promotional web copy<\/a> says.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSit down with your loved ones. Place the Connection Keeper on the dinner table and press to record. No setup needed,\u201d it goes on, noting that the device has no wifi, Bluetooth, or AI features. It\u2019s meant to help families disconnect, PR reps for Prego say. It\u2019s a joint effort with the national nonprofit StoryCorps.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cEverything now is AI, and everyone has their phones on the table,\u201d Elyce Henkin, a managing director of StoryCorps studios and brand partnerships, <\/span>told<\/span><\/a> Wired. \u201cIt interrupts the conversation and the flow. We wanted to get rid of that and go back to the basics and have everyone talking to each other.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n What happens after these fascinating dinnertime conversations are captured, you might be wondering? Beginning May 4, users can \u201ceasily and safely\u201d upload recorded content to an online portal set up by StoryCorps, to be stored for future listening.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Then what?<\/span><\/p>\n As Prego notes, \u201cThe recordings are designed to help families preserve the authentic sounds of time spent together, creating a personal archive to revisit for years to come. Families will have the option to preserve their recordings private within the StoryCorps archive or share them publicly as part of a special Prego Collection.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s also a chance that shared recording could wind up preserved forever. As StoryCorps says in the <\/span>press release<\/span><\/a> announcing this promo, they are known to preserve the recordings in their archives at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, \u201cthe largest single collection of human voices ever gathered.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n