Some people get paid to go to the conference and also for some its in their best interest to half pay attention while doing work.

On another level, sometimes I go to meetups in my area which are technically the same conference presentation as well. There are times when I regret going to the meetup (There's 10-20 people) because of how boring the speaker is or how overly technical it becomes, but I don't want to be rude and leave the area cause it'd reflect poorly. Its not like a convention where leaving is okay, everyone in the area knows each other.

For me anyway it's simple: I go to the talk because I think it's going to be interesting. If it turns out to be boring, but I feel like the speaker is making a real effort, I will stay and try to multitask my way through it, partly just in case something interesting comes up but mostly out of respect for the speaker... who after all is making a real effort.

If I feel like the speaker is just lazy then I'll get up and go somewhere else.

Note that this only works above a certain size: if it's happening in a conference room I will at least pretend to take notes on paper instead of reading email / HN / bugs / etc.

I'm not really sure whether this makes me more considerate, or more duplicitous, or maybe both.

I've done it. Sometimes you go to a 20 minute talk because the premise was interesting, but it's different from what you thought or too arcane, or the presenter has an accent you cannot understand, and it's too late to look up the program to attend another talk you might have attended instead. So you just pop up the laptop and check email. Why not?

>I always wondered why people would bother showing up for a talk or conference if they're going to be on their phone or laptop during the entire thing.

Nearly all of the interesting things at conferences happen between the talk sessions. Usually, at a bar. Usually, at about 11 o’clock at night. The reason is a lot of people go to conferences has everything to do with networking, and politics. Sometimes, they actually go to talks too.

The conferences I pay attention to are the conferences that are in areas I'm pretty weak in because all of the concepts are ill-defined in my mind so I need to work to understand the overall point of the talk.

For topics I'm familiar with, however, I find most talks too simple so I might as well get work done while vaguely listening. Ideally the talk would get more complex, but it usually doesn't.

The real part of the conference is the bit in between the talks.

(Fun fact, the first conference I went to had like five coffee breaks per day, and I got a coffee at every break and complained to someone at dinner that there was too much coffee and not enough talking. They explained it to me quickly enough!)