“I’m guilty myself,” said Charles Chan Massey, chief executive of Synaxis Meetings & Events, a management firm, who uses the time walking to and from meetings and business lunches to catch up on calls, texts and emails.

Massey of Synaxis said it would take some convincing for people to see value in laws to combat distracted walking.

Synaxis, si-nak′sis, n. in the early Church, an assembly for worship, esp. for celebrating the Eucharist.—n.

He sought in what time precisely the creed attributed to the apostles was digested, and that which bears the name of Athanasius; how the sacraments were instituted one after the other; what was the difference between synaxis and mass; how the Christian Church was divided since its origen into different parties, and how the predominating society treated all the others as heretics.

The corresponding Greek word was synaxis.