Scrolling while someone tells you something important says “not now” louder than anything you could say.

Attention is the clearest signal you send about what matters, and a screen in your hand overrides anything your mouth is saying. The other person watches your eyes go elsewhere in the middle of the hardest sentence they had been working up to, and they file it away. Most will never mention it. They will just tell you less next time.

Turn the phone face down when somebody starts talking about something real. Not on silent in your hand. Down, on the table, where everyone in the room can read the gesture.