Also an engineer - I've always found this to be really disrespectful. It's not multitasking, it's ignoring the people around you. If the meeting isn't worth your undivided attention, it's better to drop the organizer a note about why you're excusing yourself from it.

Making the meeting host compete feel like they're constantly competing for your attention is just really demoralizing.

Is there possibly a middle ground? If the meeting is about a big project and I have expert knowledge on a small part of that, I will often work through the meeting but stay tuned in for parts relevant to me. Spending the whole meeting in rapt attention would likely be a waste of time, but not attending at all is bad as well.

As others have said, an upfront agenda is helpful.

That's a good point. I personally got numb against people not paying attention the past year, doesn't mean everyone is.

It's just an easy way to reclaim time. I agree the better solution is to trim meetings.

Many meetings are completely useless, full of checked out attendees. I guarantee that many people with their cameras off are doing this exact same thing. Some of them are just using this time to get stuff done around the house.

That's even worse, IMO, because you're contributing to the waste of every else's time and making the meetings seem more important than they really are.