Papa Bear, ROs, particularly the one "At The Controls", should watch their panels.
SROs are required to maintain oversight, and monitor (but please don't operate) panels.
The Navy equivalent of Maneuvering or Enclosed Operating Space is a good analogy.
Access is controlled, conversations limited in duration or limited to subjects associated with plant ops. Formality is required.
However, federal regulations don't
prescribe specific control room decorum.
The NRC will take legal
enforcement actions against licensed operators determined to be negligent. If a control room standards are lowered low enough, long enough - that will likely happen.
The NRC is a regulatory body, not an advisor.
I always taught panel monitoring in the simulator by periodically placing the simulator in freeze
and handing out a form for the crew to fill in Power, Level, Pressure, Temperature, Dead Buses, Actuated ECCS, Actuated Auto Isolations - without looking at the panels.
After filling out 30 or 40 sets of those forms, most trainees would rattle the parameters off to you when they saw the simulator placed in freeze.
Voila - awareness. Check off all those "Monitor" Knowledges, Skills and Abilities.
We have ways of making you watch a panel.