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I will agree with Analog that some individuals are going to be a problem, in person or otherwise, but somewhat like cars, phones are enablers of bad behavior. Their immediacy blurs responsibility for the distraction. They also have an element of addiction that distorts priorities. Some people find a healthy balance, some do not. Unfortunately it often snowballs, with one distraction making the next seem less unusual and you have meetings going nowhere. More invisible loss happens when people aren't cloistered together watching the effect.
Like synthetiq, I've had to manage employees who were yacking on my nickel. It's a real problem, especially for those fresh to the workforce. Work environments with numerous recent grads are an HR minefield. At some point distractions have to be managed. Blanket policy lets the work continue while society figures out subtlety.
In a way, phone bans are an admission of failure. Failure to manage, train, communicate. Possibly a failure to provide adequate tools. Bans are an act of "have to do something" desperation.
However you stack it though, phone bans aren't caused by an acceptable average of employees using them responsibly.
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There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195
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