I realise it is probably rude to ask this, but how old are you?<p>The reason I ask, is that you comment that this is a symptom of your generation's upbringing, but the reality is that there is also a simple age component in this.<p>When I was young, I used to devour books while commuting on public transport. Occasionally I would glance up at the older commuters and see them sitting there, staring into nothing, and would think "Gee how can they just stand there doing NOTHING". Now I am one of those people - given 5 minutes with nobody fighting for my attention I just sit there and grab the opportunity to think.<p>In other words as life starts throwing more things at you, the necessity of defending some thinking space becomes more apparent, irrespective of which generation you belong to.