Is "Rawdogging" a flight as awful as it sounds?

As dignity has officially disembarked planes around the world, distraction has become an essential part of air travel. And it's easy to keep busy: seatback entertainment systems on airlines like Delta offer a host of new releases and classics – Bob Fosse’s elusive All That Jazz was streamable on a recent flight, for example, which I had to buy a DVD of to watch on solid ground; airport stalwarts like Hudson News have racks of bestsellers and magazines for anyone who might have forgotten their reading at home. It's as ingrained in us to download playlists before boarding as it is to remove our shoes going through airport security.

Plug in, zone out, and leave that body of yours that’s folded uncomfortably into an economy seat. That's the ritual. But not everyone, it seems, is so keen on diversion.

The latest trend in travel has a vulgar name that perhaps speaks to the lows we've reached in air travel. It’s called “rawdogging” and refers to the practice, in some measure, of adopting a monk-like asceticism whilst flying. The minimum expectation is that participants abstain from most all forms of entertainment in the air: no movies or television use, nor music through the free earbuds.

Not even analogue entertainment like a paperback or journal to write in. The only exception is the real-time flight tracker, the tiny token of an airplane inching imperceptibly closer and closer to the final destination. When told about this sensation, a friend recently mused, “A watc.