Seemingly innocuous, surprisingly divisive. The great headphone debate rages on
They’re a sight so ubiquitous in the modern office that you hardly think about it anymore, but it’s only been in the last ten to 15 years that many workers have grown accustomed to wearing headphones at work ― and it’s (still) a surprisingly divisive subject.
Headphone and earbud use has become more common with the rise of smartphones, Bluetooth technology and so on; some studies have found that more than half of all workers regularly use them.
For many headphone-wearers, they are a productivity tool. Around two-thirds of headphone users say it increases their productivity, and cuts down on external distractions. For workers who find the noise of a workplace distracting or overstimulating ― as many neurodivergent workers might ― noise-cancelling headphones have also been found to be a useful accommodation.
But it was the introduction of the open office design philosophy that exploded their popularity as an office accoutrement, wrote Rob Walker in The New York Times. Headphones came to replace the privacy afforded by private office walls. “Even if collaboration or connection results from that obliteration of workers’ privacy, sometimes we all need to block out everything [and everyone] and concentrate. While it may be annoying to deal with a headphone-wearer, it’s also annoying to have little to no privacy.”
However, as workplaces return to the office, often hoping to rekindle some kind of office ‘vibe,’ some are bemoaning the headphones. In a recent column, columnist Jane Shilling wrote in The Telegraph that, “instead of the industrious buzz of work conversation and banter, there reigns an eerily muted soundscape of tapping keyboards, the metallic fizz of headphone overspill and disjointed fragments of video calls.”
Headphone critics say that having everyone siloed off in their own sonic worlds is bad for collaboration and bad for career growth. But really, for most workplaces where worker safety isn’t impeded, the ship has probably long since sailed.
“As younger generations enter the workforce,” said workplace lawyer Hogan Crosby, “it is important for employers to recognize that personal technology device use in the workplace is only going to grow more common. As such, it is important that employers get ahead of the curve when developing policies on the use of technology like earbuds and headphones in their workplace.”
Content written by Kieran Delamont for Worklife, a partnership between Ahria Consulting and London Inc. To view this content in newsletter form, click here.