[ryandrake]

> It's acceptable to just pick up your phone now to look up something or check your messages during a conversation in a lull.

I certainly wouldn't find that to be acceptable at all, and if someone I was with did that, I would ask them politely if they had something more important they needed to be doing, and if they wanted to postpone our catch up until later when they weren't as busy.

[lucyjojo]

I guess it would be region and age dependent. As social norms tend to be.