The people at the table deserve more of you than the people in your phone.

Whoever is in front of you is the harder audience, because a real person is slower, less edited and occasionally boring. What is in your hand was designed to beat any given minute of ordinary life, so it wins by default unless you decide otherwise. The cost stays invisible, since nobody announces that they felt like the second thing in the room. They just tell you a bit less next time.

Put it away for the length of a meal, face down and out of reach. Ask one question, then another. The person who took the trouble to be there has earned that much.