The only people who like low cubicle walls or a bullpen style of office are bosses who will step out of their office a couple of times a day and like to see an array of filled desks and shout the name of someone to get their attention. Headphones increase productivity. Here's a tip - noise cancellin headphones only cancel steady background noise like airplane engines of ventilation fans. They make nearby conversations clearer and more distracting.

If you poll employees about the kind of room/space they wish to work in, they will always ask for higher walls, all the way to the ceiling. And by the way, I'd like a door to close behind me, although most office doors are left open. We have 3/4 height cubicles, which make most people unable to see in/out even when they stand. Most offices of our type seem to have the type that block sightlines only when seated. Music is okay, but headphones would kill the kind of collaboration we get when people work on projects together, which is pretty much all the time.

I use headphones at the office because I work in cubes and there is absolutely no sound protection. You are forced to listen to people's inane conversations and long negotiation sessions. I find it very difficult to concentrate with all the noise going on around me. I came from having an office to working in this type of environment which offers no noise control or privacy.

I listen to white noise via headphones to mask the human bullhorns who feel the need to broadcast personal life details across 4 rows of cubes. The move to lower cube walls as a means to improve productivity is a clear sign pointy haired bosses don't understand how most people work most effectively. Leave collaboration for conferance rooms. People need time to get into and stay in the 'zone' where true creativity occurs.

I changed my mind on the subject. I used to work out my home. Then I moved into an open office environment. I saw the young people with headphones on and I too thought it would be bad for communication. There were so many conversations in the office, the only way I could get work done was to put on headphones with Esperanza Spaulding or Josh Groban. Of course I would have to have it loud enough to block conversations but quiet enough to hear if someone needed to speak with me or to hear my phone ring. As a frame of reference, I am 53 years old.

Thanks for all these comments. The article included a couple of startling quotes. The "amount of noise you would hear in a restaurant"? That's not just a background hum: in many restaurants, you can't have a conversation without shouting. And why the assumption that silence isn't relaxing? For some of us, it is. Also, Elaine Varelas, we don't all work in teams, and besides that, some research has shown that teams work best when members have a quiet place for private work as well as places to interact. One more point: one size does not fit all. Different people have different levels of noise tolerance. Different people also have different levels of extroversion versus introversion. If workplaces are biased toward talkative extroverts, we lose out on a lot of talent.

I'm the same age and I agree. Although I have it set up so my phone goes through a computer and the music cuts out when the phone rings. I usually listen to opera or Led Zeppelin.

You know I seldom reply to comments but this is a great point. Restaurants are very noisy. Using the Decibel meter on my iPhone a casual dining restaurant can equal an airport runway. Once at a TGIFriday I asked if the music could be turned down so people could hear each other. I was told by the manager that the sound was automatically adjusted so the louder the conversation the louder the music. He then suggested my wife and I would be more comfortable coming on a less busy night. We never went back. Long way to the point -- my concern is that offices may start cranking up the "white noise" generator so that it sounds like a wind tunnel.

This is a bigger issue than just the use of headphones. It's about how employees are valued and for what reason. I use headphones with white noise to blot out chatter about co-workers' children. If interrupted at work, I can lose an idea forever. Teamwork is overrated. Managers should pay attention to Susan Cain's book Quiet:The Power of Introverts In a World that Can't Stop Talking. "SOLITUDE is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place. Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in... http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-the-new-groupthink.html?pagewanted=all

The issue of interruptions has been extensively studied. Interruptions are VERY bad for people such as software developers, engineers, and scientists, who require intense concentration in order to solve problems. Some older studies focus on the use of public address systems, which cause such workers to make errors, to find inferior solutions to problems, or fail to solve problems. The answer is somewhat different for other types of work; people whose work is repetitive, for instance, can benefit from various types of interactions. Also, certain types of interruptions can be worthwhile, such as "we don't need to solve that problem after all", or "I solved it", or the interruption where you need to get up for a bio break and it causes you to relax and free up your creative mind. Some offices have found that having "quiet time" and "talk time" is helpful in creating a balanced environment. I'd hate to go that far, but I consider part of my job in managing technical people is to protect them from interruptions. Casual encounters can happen in the hallway, in break rooms, and other times when the problemsolvers are not deep in concentration.