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Marissa Yu works in a busy office, surrounded by 120 co-workers in a mostly open space. Yet when she has a question, needs an update or tries to reach some of her colleagues, she might as well talk to the wall. 玛丽莎•余(Marissa Yu)是休斯敦建筑工程公司PageSoutherlandPage的室内装潢主管，她在一个嘈杂的办公室里办公，近乎全开放式的办公环境中有120个同事环绕在她的周围。然而，当她想问个事、了解点情况或叫某个人时，却屡屡碰壁。 "You call their name one, two, three, four times, and they're not responding," says Ms. Yu, director of interiors in Houston for PageSoutherlandPage, an architecture and engineering firm. "You dial their extension and they're not picking up. Pretty soon you're throwing rubber bands across the wall." Michael Stravato for Wall Street Journal休斯敦建筑工程公司PageSoutherlandPage的办公室内，有四分之三的员工戴着耳机工作。玛丽莎说，“你叫他们的名字三四遍，却得不到一点反应。你打分机过去，他们不接，最后你只好冲他们扔橡皮筋。” The culprit: ear buds playing music and noise-canceling headphones. Roughly three-quarters of Ms. Yu's co-workers wear them, and they're increasingly becoming de rigueur ear-wear in offices throughout the country. Many people argue that headphones are good at blocking distractions. And while a few employers ban their use, most tolerate it as a way for employees to regain some privacy in an open-plan office. | 
