you live under a damn rock

No. Because as you said, most carry one around willingly.

I can switch my phone out. Or leave it at home.

Remember when the police found OJ Simpson in the mid '90s during his infamous police chase by tracking which cell towers his phone was connected to? The tech has gotten much better since then.

Does a pair of similarly-sized tin cans offer any protection, or do the spies subsidize sufficient accelerometers to be able to defeat your puny human tactics over the length of any reasonable car trip? (I assume they do with an Apple phone, but who would spends so much anyway? The spies should be paying YOU.)

But do you?

Yes, I'm not addicted to my phone.

Would you consider that the norm?

elaborate

Who knows, I don't care all that much for what other people do with their time.