I had one of those "blessings in disguise" circumstances around 2017. I had just purchased a shiny new "phone of my dreams"[0] to have it land face down on the concrete two days later resulting in a few large cracks.

I paid full price for the phone; it wasn't top of the line, I could afford to replace it but it wouldn't be "fun" -- and you can guess that I purchased no insurance. Owing to stubbornness and a general desire to punish myself a little so that I didn't make that mistake, again, I decided I'd continue to use it as long as the touch-screen accepted input and was basically usable (without injury).

I expected to put up with it for a few months. A few things happened: Doom scrolling basically stopped, entirely. When I visited social media, I'd prefer my laptop so the time I spent there was "maybe once in the evening" rather than any time "I had to wait". I became the obnoxious guy who replied to texts with phone calls[1], and wrote e-mail replies that were longer than the "Sent from my ..." notice (which none of my e-mails contained because all were sent from my well worn keyboard).

The phone didn't come out during dinners/meetings. To be clear: I don't feel the need to engage people in conversation simply because we're "both waiting for a meeting to start" and "we work together." But be the one guy in the room who doesn't have his phone out and just ... sit there. It's at least a little awkward; you sort of feel like a voyeur as everyone buries their nose in their screen as if the act of doing so makes them invisible to the outside world.

It takes a second, but someone will almost always look up and notice you're ... just ... sitting there. You can watch the expression change on their face as they question this odd social behavior but it eventually lands on: Someone seems to think we shouldn't have our phones out!. A "guilty look" and a sly "sneak it into the pocket/chair" action later and ... now there are two people, sitting quietly, watching a room of people staring down at screens. By the time the third person follows, someone feels the need to start small-talking and wow some folks are out of practice!

There were a few occasions where I thought I may have been giving off a look, unknown to myself. I really don't care about other's phone habits if I am not their parent or romantic partner. I write software and work with others who write software. Most of us our phone habits were excessive before "it was normal"; a few of you, somehow manage to handle conversation and Doom Scrolling simultaneously with minimal effort. So I occasionally found myself in the odd position of having to grant some sort of not-directly-requested-but-clearly-desired permission ... like I'd be doing exactly that if I could; don't mind me at all. It wasn't that I had a completely busted phone, it was just really inconvenient to read anything reasonable on; and I'd rather look at the dots in the ceiling tiles than remind myself of my $600 "dammit".

Outside of those weird situations, in smaller group/1:1 settings I've found if my phone isn't out, their phone will stay in their purse/pocket and we'll actually engage in whatever activity brought us away from our home/homes and into the world.

Going on a year, I had no interest in replacing the phone. I kept the broken screen phone for longer than I'd ever used a mobile device. As if to test my resolve, this phone refused to die. Eventually, on year 4.5, it stopped taking a charge. My new phone gets a little more use, but I'm much more aware of it, now. I'm the last person to take the thing out of my pocket; my notifications are customized to very quiet tones except for a small number of contacts so I know when it's worth "responding to the bell."

I'm not recommending anyone go out and take a hammer to their phone, or anything. That first few months took a lot of resolve to not just plunk down the MasterCard and fix my mistake, but I'm glad I didn't.

[0] It was a Samsung, but I can't remember which one.

[1] Having the additionally side-effect of eliminating text messages for things that a few seconds thought, or at worst -- Google -- could handle with fewer social obligations attached.