They even say "people isolate themselves with headphones", and don't look at the converse: if you need to wear headphones because of people talking, you probably realize the frustration you cause other people if you have a conversation around them.

This is not a hard concept, and it remains weird that they don't address it.

They talk about all sorts of complex topics ("Similarly, recent collective intelligence work suggests that, like our open offices, too much information from social data can be problematic", "assumes that spatial boundaries built into workspace architecture support collaboration and collective intelligence by mitigating the effects of the cognitive constraints of the human beings working within them.", etc), rather than going:

1. Open plan means more distraction. By design: that is the increased f2f interaction.

2. Basic decency means people attempt to reduce unnecessary distractions for others.