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frou_dh
> You are not a badass multi-tasking motherfucker. You are a rude, not-paying-attention, asshole. You are disrespecting the speaker’s effort and distracting those around you.

Agreed. I've also seen possibly the worst mutation of this: a live "tweet wall" projector being filled with memes and inside jokes by these people in realtime. Jesus wept.

thenewgreen
What about people that take notes on their laptop? They exist, they are strange I'll admit but they exist.
waqf
Strange for taking notes, or strange for thinking that a laptop is a suitable tool for that?
user49598
tldr: Close your laptop, it's rude. Unless your intention is to be rude, then it's cool.

OP seems super judgmental and a bit narcissistic.

batista
"Super judgmental" for saying to close your laptop during a conference talk?

This is common, fucking, courtesy. I cannot even fathom how one would find that "narcissistic".

The part about "opening them" if the presentation is boring, though, is problematic. Who is to call that?

mikeash
I don't care what my audience gets up to. If I'm less interesting than their browser, that's my problem, not theirs. If I'm half interesting but they need a distraction, then I'd much rather have them pay half attention while on their laptop than pay full attention and finish up my talk bored to tears.