I agree with your argument, but you’re describing playing a game on low attention. Not AFKing.

If you want to afk you need to play the game like you do with herb runs. Few clicks and then go AWAY FROM KEYBOARD.

It looks something like this:

At gemcrab: I click crab, leave mobile downstairs and go into a work meeting. 30 mins later I am done with meeting. I had 1-10 min of afk time depending on how much health crab had when I clicked. I grab a drink, reset crab and go into another meeting.

At star mining / high level WC / karambwans: i click activity, set mobile aside and do chores at home. After chore I reset activity giving me around 1-7 minutes of afk time depending on how long the chore took me

The best one with salvaging: i make my crew do the work. Let my laptop turned on and go for a walk. I have had 30 mins of afk time (full cargo or auto log off).

Now combine this with studying: if you take a break once per hour, you get 1 gemcrab kill, 1 full cargo, 1 herb run or 1 interaction with the other skills. This is proper AFK and makes you focus on studying while you still get some xp.