I certainly agree that if your laptop is open, you&#x27;re not really listening.  (If you&#x27;re looking up something for the meeting, then the fact that you&#x27;re not listening may well be a contribution, of course.)<p>What I think is not so clear is whether or not it&#x27;s okay to have people at a meeting who are mostly-not-present, but just background-listening.  They might know that the meeting is mostly not for&#x2F;about them, but that it might touch on their stuff, and they want to stay loosely informed.  Of course, if someone takes good notes and sends them around, those might be just as good, but maybe no such notes exist.