The first course lands on the table, and instead of grabbing their forks and knives, everyone in the dining party takes out a smartphone.

Click, flash, ding.

Not a word is spoken as the group concentrates on capturing images of their food at just the right angle to send out to Facebook friends and Twitter followers.

Then the first bites are taken and the laughter and conversation resume.

It used to be rude to bring out a phone at the table, but those days are gone. Smartphones have become as much a part of a place setting as forks, knives and spoons.

For some it’s an amusing hobby, but for others to whom social media is second nature, it’s an obsession or even a profession.

Toby Tamaye of AT Marketing makes sure he’s got a fully charged phone before heading out to major food events.

“I have to Instagram all my food,” said Tamaye, who uses the photo app to post pictures to Twitter and Facebook simultaneously.

“For me it’s just part of what I do,” he said. “It’s about sharing the experience.”

Fern Palabay, who works for Queen’s Health Systems, started posting food photos online when she got her first smartphone — a BlackBerry Pearl — in 2008. Since most of her meals are with her fiance, who works in social media, she says having Twitter and Facebook at the table isn’t all that different from how couples of previous generations would share the newspaper over breakfast.

There is no formal handbook on proper smartphone etiquette at the dinner table, but devotees of social media have developed their own codes of conduct.

Lindsey Muraoka, whose Food La La blog appears on hono­lulu­pulse.com, says it all depends on the situation. If she goes to a dinner intending to blog about it, she brings a smartphone and a camera and documents every course. She also makes sure to go with friends who understand this and don’t mind waiting before digging in.

“If I am with nonsocial-media people, then I will not take any pictures unless we are eating something really interesting that I’ve never tried before,” Mura­oka said. “Then I will ask if I can take a quick picture first. People are usually OK with that.”

Librarian Suzanne Uratani says she takes food photos at restaurants only if the dish is exceptional, and she waits until later to post them to Twitter. She said she’s been annoyed in situations when food was served family style and she had to wait for the others to take photos before eating.

“I’m much too busy enjoying my food to let it go cold!” she said.

Tamaye says that when he’s out with a group of “Twitterati,” the general rule is not to eat or touch any of the food until everyone’s done taking photos and uploading them.

“Then you can eat it,” he said.

It takes only a minute or two to snap and post pictures. While Tamaye uses Instagram during meals, he still considers talking on the phone at the table to be rude.

The marketing pro says people who use social media at restaurants are providing valuable — and free — promotional services to the businesses.

“People are taking photos and sharing it with thousands of friends via the Internet on Foursquare, Facebook and Twitter,” he said.

Many chefs and restaurant owners in Hono­lulu have embraced social media as part of the contemporary dining experience and as an influential marketing tool.

Lane Muraoka, owner of the Big City Diner chain and no relation to the Food La La blogger, says he welcomes social media users in his restaurants and regularly hosts “tweet-ups” — gatherings of people who use Twitter — with “Hawaii Five-0” fans. Mura­oka, who is active on Twitter, says it’s been a great way to interact with customers.

“We like people taking pics of our food and posting,” he wrote in an email. “I don’t recall a negative pic. We’ve gotten pics before, during and after their meal. … I like to RT (re-tweet) some of the photos whenever possible.”

But social media can cut both ways, and Mura­oka prefers that customers with complaints send him a direct Twitter message first so he has a chance to respond before it’s posted for all to see.

Roy’s Restaurants recently hired its first interactive-marketing specialist to handle its social media accounts. Aya Nishi­hara manages Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare for Roy’s as well as the Hawaii operation’s Instagram and Pinterest accounts.

“We think it’s great — it’s marketing,” said Nishi­hara. “We want our guests to enjoy their experience at Roy’s, and if that includes tweeting, Facebooking, Instagramming, Foursquaring and whatever else, that’s fine.”

Ed Kenney, owner-chef of town restaurant in Kaimuki, says he sees at least one tweet a night, often with a photo attached, from a customer enjoying a meal at his place.

Although the photos are often of low quality, Kenney says there’s still value in getting town’s name out in the Twitterverse.

Kenney himself snaps shots of his restaurant meals on his smartphone. He has a “chefs list” of the nearly 200 chefs he follows on Twitter who regularly tweet about their dishes and restaurant issues.

“On occasion we all tweet dishes that we’re proud of,” he said. “I frequently tweet before, during and after photos of our whole-hog program,” which shows how every part of a pig is processed for various dishes.

Once, after posting a photo of freshly made blood sausage on Twitter, six customers who saw it showed up for breakfast the next morning, he said.

About two dozen people attended a tweet-up at Bubbie’s Homemade Ice Cream & Desserts in Hawaii Kai in late July that was organized by Linh Hoang in celebration of National Ice Cream Month.  “All of my friends here I met via Twitter,” she said. “We’re also here to have fun, support a local business and just to eat ice cream.”

Hoang, who works for the University of Hawaii Foundation, often posts tweets about the food she’s eating, as well as fashion — another passion.

The social media version of an ice cream social really is social — with a geeky twist. Everyone is talking and laughing while at the same time playing with their smartphones, laptops or other gadgets.

Taking photos of an ice cream cone with a smartphone is a juggling act, and you have to do it quickly before it melts. Some members of the group even took photos of each other taking photos to post online.

There may not be any formal rules for smartphone etiquette at mealtime, but frequent practitioners seem to agree you should consider who you are dining with. If your companions are not social-media types, then your phone should be turned off or put away in your purse or pocket.

When taking photos, keep flashes to a minimum in consideration of other diners.

And don’t check your phone or let a text or tweet interrupt a lively dinner conversation. That’s just rude.