The opening post was about a psychological effect to which this poster responded "No. I wrote up the computations explaining why." and linked to a paper which had as a conclusion an increase in breathing rates.
My point is that a crowded room likely has more than one causes which could explain why productivity is lowered and decisions making worsened.
You won't notice an autonomic response but your brain likely will and it might very well answer by releasing adrenaline, cortisol, etc., and make you more anxious and stressed to encourage you to leave the environment that is causing the increased breathing rates.
> Interestingly, this study revealed some evidence that overall background noise, such as television, music, and chatter could improve performance in complex cognitive tasks for extraverts, although it will significantly impair introverts’ performance (Furnham & Bradley, 1997).
Maybe this explains why open offices are so popular with higher-ups? They tend to be extroverts, and if their own personal experience is that distracting noise is positive... I've always wondered why the negative impact isn't completely self-evident.
I don't think that's true to be honest; sensory overstimulation is a thing with a lot of people, and workspaces should adjust to it accordingly. (there's also sensory processing disorder where it can get so bad people have a breakdown in the grocery store) However, there is also understimulation - some people can't work in a quiet office, as the article itself also points out.
Long story short, a workspace has to cater to multiple different people - shocking, I know.
I wondered this too. Like yeah you’re going to be cognitively drained after being in a crowded closed meeting room for a long time. Is it because you were talking and working or because of the CO2.
> I'm a big fan of bull pen type environments, where it's wide open spaces and everyone is together with no walls between.
Visual and audio noise.
They're really bad for productivity of creators. They're good for managers / coordinators / investors.
The standard argument that "you can wear headphones" doesn't work for serious design work. Pounding music is great for grinding through list-ish stuff, but not for creativity.
It's like sleep deprivation. People who are sleep deprived will insist "I'm fine -- I just need a coffee", but their performance is much lower than those who are well rested.
EDIT> I'm not responding to the over-the-shoulder question here. I find it very distracting to see others' faces, though, e.g. with back-to-back monitors. Most of us are wired to pay attention to faces, so they cause a lot of visual noise.
At this point in my career, open-concept offices with > 4 or so people are a deal breaker. It makes me hate programming.
Very interesting to think about, considering my anxiety tends to push me in the opposite direction, so I favore less crowded spaces or less physical closeness to other people.
The acoustic component is worth diving into, to me, since this is a big trigger. If the space is too loud, or cacophonous, I end up starting to lose higher-order functioning and have to vacate or wear my earplugs/noise-canceling headphones and just cut myself off from the sound (makes my job pretty awkward at times, tbh)
Small spaces amplify this acoustic aversion for me, especially when there are already people occupying the area. It's not claustrophobia, more of a "my brain will try to focus on all sounds at once and get sensory overload, so I probably should not go/stay there."
> 100 Percent increase in loss of productivity due to noise distraction in open-plan offices compared with private offices, as cited in a 2013 paper published by the Journal of Environmental Psychology.
And yet, employment statistics show Americans are more productive than they've ever been. Something doesn't smell right with this data.
I find the atmosphere in a room with 2, 3 or 4 people far more oppressive that a room with a 100. Probably something to do with being able to ignore people when they are a multitude, but things getting too personal when it's a small group.
I always found it very easy to concentrate in big spaces as long as I feel nobody cares about what I am doing, and that seems easy in a big room. I also don't care much about small distractions or noises, I always hear people complaining about getting out of the zone when they have to chat a bit with a coworker. It takes me a big effort to get into the zone when I am starting to work, some kind of a starting period while I load all the relevant information in my head, but once I'm there I can get in and out and attend subtasks or have a conversation with somebody with no problem.
> Does working outside of your office make ambient noise more tolerable?
Ambient noise in a cafe is different than ambient noise in an office, in my experience. Obviously this is going to be different in each office and cafe, but I'll try to compare/contrast them.
In a cafe:
* (Con) The conversations of my closest neighbors, clearly-audible.
* (Pro) Muted conversations of everyone in the building
* (Pro, sometimes con) The espresso machine(s)
* (Pro) Weather sounds (rain, wind)
* (Con) Road noise
In an open office:
* (Con) Office air conditioner noise
* (Con) Typing and mouse clicks
* (Con) Every conversation in the space is clearly-audible.
* (Con) Doors opening and closing
* (Con) The annoying beep our badge entry/exit system makes
> Office noise bothers some people more than others
The title could be better as there is some discussion about health implications. Then again, I read the article because of the title. I am pretty sure you can't make it less interesting, as it already reads like "people react different to things". Yeah, no doubt on that.
YMMV was your second statement. Your first statement was a flat assertion that is false for many people, including me.
> You're applying a worst case experience with a cubicle to all cubicles
No, I'm saying that the worst case experience exists and is basically the same as no cubicles. Your statement that I objected to was "There's a whole lot more noise isolation than no cubicles at all", which is simply false for the worst case (which I think is fairly common actually).
> If I have my headphones in, I'm busy. If I don't, I can answer questions or talk to my colleagues about something.
This comes up every time people discuss open floor plans. Inevitably someone says that the solution is headphones. Except that a lot of people don't want to wear headphones all the time. I find it uncomfortable, and I also find that music significantly reduces my productivity (unless I'm doing something that doesn't require any meaningful amount of thought). A number of studies have shown the same thing. Listening to music while working decreases mental power.
The article also covered this:
But the most problematic aspect of the open office may be physical rather
than psychological: simple noise. In laboratory settings, noise has been
repeatedly tied to reduced cognitive performance. The psychologist Nick
Perham, who studies the effect of sound on how we think, has found that
office commotion impairs workers’ ability to recall information, and even
to do basic arithmetic. Listening to music to block out the office
intrusion doesn’t help: even that, Perham found, impairs our mental acuity.
> I can't help feeling that younger people such as myself
I don't think you're as much different as you imagine. Young people don't work in drastically different ways than older people.
There have been studies going back as far as Peopleware and The Timeless Way of Building that suggest people are generally adversely affected when the noise is more than noise they personally generate (e.g. keyboard clicking), and not in their control (e.g. choosing to listen to music may be fine, but when you’re forced to listen to music because the alternative is a distracting conversation between teammates it has adverse effects).
The other thing, especially mentioned in The Timeless Way of Building, is that you need privacy to reach a state of flow. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re isolated or that no one can interrupt you, but it means nothing in your immediate vicinity is triggering your peripheral vision or any sense of a fight vs flight reflex because someone’s walking around right behind you, etc. Most of that research advocates that individuals should be allowed to customize these aspects of their personal space, like privacy, quiet, lighting, ergonomics..
More generally though, it’s not about what works for you or for me. It’s about what we can empirically learn about states of flow, and on that front it’s utterly beyond dispute that open-plan offices are disastrously bad.
Trading desk, as a research quant. The office was open-plan, there were constantly people passing behind me, and expletive-laden interruptions related to market conditions were frequent.
For the first 6 months, it was very exciting, but eventually the sensory overload and taxing environment got to me, and I started having health problems. In retrospect, I think the open-plan office was much more of a contributor than the noise, which could be tuned out pretty easily. Open plan => needing to pay constant attention to how one is perceived => anxiety => diminished productivity => more anxiety => immune system fails => very sick.
I think 107 F is worse, though. I stop being productive around 90, and I'm pretty sure I'd die after 8 hours in that heat.
> To work we need a quiet environment (or good headphones - I absolutely don't regret buying my latest pair)
This is of course by no means universal. My desk at work is in a room full of very quiet types. I could sit there all morning and nobody would say a word.
It drives me mad. After 10 minutes I find myself browsing HN or reddit. The only way I can really get work done is to go to one of the other buildings with a coffee shop and sit down at a table where I can see the whole room.
I thrive on the buzz of activity. It makes me feel like I should be getting something accomplished. Quiet offices make me feel like I should take a nap.
For many, the alternative to music is not a silent room. Would be interesting to have that study done in an open office situation with the typical background noice and interuptions.
Having some of the noise diminished by putting things on your ears != being alone. I'm just slightly physically uncomfortable in a large room filled with people, especially when I'm trying to focus on something. Especially when that's how I'd spend 2/3 of my waking life on work days.
It's not to the level anywhere near some sort of phobia, it's just that when I'm in a big room with a lot of activity a portion of my brain is dedicated to concern for what's happening in the room. In an office, it's a space that I own and control. That level of comfort leads to more productivity and happiness.
I don't want to be alone in an office all the time or even necessarily most of the time, but without that cave to return to when I need to focus, life is just plain worse.
Yes, that's what many devs do. That is of varied efficiency to different people. In laboratory settings, noise has been repeatedly tied to reduced cognitive performance [1].
Also, what happens during flu season? How many people are gone and how often vs private office setting? I'd love to see a study on this.
My point is that a crowded room likely has more than one causes which could explain why productivity is lowered and decisions making worsened.
You won't notice an autonomic response but your brain likely will and it might very well answer by releasing adrenaline, cortisol, etc., and make you more anxious and stressed to encourage you to leave the environment that is causing the increased breathing rates.
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