In my life it got to a point with some friends where I introduced the idea of everyone taking their phones out and putting them face down on a stack on the table, if you really need to check your phone for something important one has to voice out "I need to check my phone", taking a break from hanging out to check it. It annoys me to no end when in the middle of a conversation someone takes their phone out just to check a message, or Instagram, or any kind of trivial notification, and end up lost in it for a few minutes, it's been really great to make them more aware of the behaviour as it completely tunes me off from a conversation seeing someone you're trying to communicate with staring intensely into their screens.
At least in VR I know that they aren't present, easier to adjust, with phones it just annoys me absolutely.