It can depend on the nature of the job. More creative jobs and those about figuring out deep and complex problems need more solitude I think. If it's more of a straightforward task that just needs to be done, it's probably easier to do it among distractions. Cleaning up code, refactoring, code review, etc are the latter category for me. Coming up with a new design or figuring out what problem to solve, how to frame the issue, what is the issue about deep down, taking steps back and looking at the whole picture, that's the former.