Do any of you do this? Answering a text mid-conversation.

[Coffeetree]

I know I'm not BU but do any of you do this for non-emergencies?

A couple of people in my day-today life will just stop mid-sentence and look at their phone when it pings. Even when you're right in the middle of a conversation. They never give an explanation like, "Sorry, it might be my mum" or whatever.

One of them is a colleague in her early fifties. She'll look and start texting back, without a word to her live interlocutor. Sometimes she'll just answer a call and start talking, when it's clearly not urgent. I stop speaking, get up, and walk away the instant she does it. In a group setting, I was giving a presentation when she started texting. I stopped speaking and stared at her until she stopped.

The other is a younger colleague and I also walk away.

To be clear, neither of them gives any explanation or acknowledgement like, "Sorry I'm just answering because xyz" .

My former partner did this too, until I wandered out of his flat without his noticing. Lesson learned.

Is this something we're doing now?

Sorry, disregard the above, I was being stroppy because I'm having a bad day.

Yes but they won't be texting if it's an emergency will they? That's what calls are for

Actually, I've been alerted to loose stock (not mine, but causing a danger to road users and nobody else to deal with them) via messenger multiple times in the past.

There's loads of reasons why people might not call in an emergency, but the primary one is that sometimes people don't have your number, but can send you a message via one of the many convenient apps.