I am the original author of this article. I just found out that a friend had posted it on HN and found these comments. Most seem to fall into a few categories:

I am the original author of this article. I just found out that a friend had posted it on HN and found these comments. Most seem to fall into a few categories: "If I'm not paying attention, it's because your meeting is boring or irrelevant." I am not talking about people who open their laptops in a few (or even most) meetings where the content is boring. I'm talking about people (including myself until recently) who open their laptop or pick up their phone in every single meeting they attend. If you are not that person, no reason to be offended. If you are, then please explain to me how every single meeting can be irrelevant. "I have ADHD, I can multitask. In fact, I work better when I multitask." Somewhere between 5% and 11% of all children in America are believed to have ADHD. Even if quadruple that number for people in the computer industry, that still leaves the majority of the population as non-ADHD sufferers. Those are the people I'm talking about. The majority. Also note that I'm not just talking about people in the computer industry, but all information workers. The incidence of ADHD in the general population is not nearly large enough to explain the epidemic I'm describing. "But I use my laptop to take notes." The second sentence in the article clearly states that it is fine to do so "for the purposes of the meeting - to take notes..." I guess you must have been multitasking and missed that sentence. :) "Maybe you should make your meetings more interesting if you want me to pay attention." I will just quote from the article again: "As the meeting organizer, I should, of course, strive to make the meeting relevant and the decisions concrete. Otherwise, I deserve to be ignored for the latest tweet or alert."