“Mm-hmm” while scrolling isn’t listening. People can hear the scroll in your voice.

Attention has a sound. The small delay, the flat agreement, the response that fits anything: people pick all of it up without knowing how they know. What stings is not being ignored for a minute, it is finding out that something ordinary on a screen was more interesting than them.

Try setting the phone out of reach when someone starts talking about something that matters to them. If you genuinely cannot stop what you are doing, say so and give them a time. Half attention offered as full attention is the part that hurts.