That was my experience with it as well. Once I got "fluent" in driving manual, I wasn't even consciously thinking about it, so it wasn't any harder to get dist

That was my experience with it as well. Once I got "fluent" in driving manual, I wasn't even consciously thinking about it, so it wasn't any harder to get distracted than when driving an automatic. And your hand isn't even on the shifter most of the time anyway.