I turn on some white noise over virtual meetings to attenuate sudden volume changes and it makes it much more bearable. At times Im all ears but most of the time the meeting should have included 2-3 people instead of 12-14.
That looks immature. Much better to state to the group that you can see that your participation isn't benefitting the company and that you are going to go and do something that will.
well, if your participation is that necessary to warrant people thinking you’re immature if you dont focus all your attention to it - you should probably not do this and participate in it. but, for most meetings, you only really need to have a list of key points you need to bring up or address, and then speak up when it’s required, and otherwise keep working. if people think it’s rude, you get the bonus side effect of not getting invited to further pointless meetings.
I was being a bit rude but what I was trying to say is that IMO it's a bit immature to work in a meeting at all: if you're working then you will work better not in the meeting, and if you have to speak up when required then how can you be sure you have not missed relevant context while you were working?
Basically, people who work on their laptops during meetings are demonstrating that they don't have the confidence to point out to someone that they should not / no longer be in the meeting.