How Effective Is Sound Masking In Reducing Distractions In Open Office Environments?
As companies strive to improve employee workspaces, sound masking, a method for limiting distractions in open offices, has gained popularity. Sound masking reduces noisy distractions, improving productivity and well-being in such environments. Sound masking creates a continuous background noise to hide disturbing noises. Sound masking devices enhance the baseline sound level in a workplace, making abrupt sounds less obvious and bothersome. This steady background noise may block out voices, office equipment, and other noises, boosting acoustics. Sound masking reduces distractions in open workplace spaces by obscuring voice intelligibility. The human voice is the most distracting sound at work because our brains are wired to listen to it. Sound masking devices make it harder to hear conversations by creating a steady background noise that covers speech frequencies. Thus, workers can concentrate better and are less distracted by neighboring chatter. Additionally, other frequent workplace