I guess I'm one of the people who ruin it for everyone else. I'm ADD as all get out when it comes to something I'm not really into, but when I'm lasered in on something interesting, it would pretty much take a fire drill to break me out of that. I even prefer a background din in that situation over dead silence—so I've never been bothered by, or spoken out against, any of the trends away from silence. I love open-plan workspaces since I can have an ear open for anything particularly important or interesting (especially if it's relevant to what I'm working on).
I probably should've mentioned that it's not all sunshine and rainbows for me: the biggest tradeoff was that it took getting on Adderall for me to stop failing the more mundane courses in college (the ability to totally zone in on interesting stuff was always there, though), and since not every task can be an interesting one, I still have to take it to be consistently productive. And the side effects are not pleasant.
I too would love for a few breakthroughs to make it possible to do one-time correctional procedures for stuff like this.
For around $50 you can have an audiologist make earplugs that are molded specifically to your ear. These are much more comfortable and give better attenuation than standard earplugs.
I assure you that it's really just not that simple.
I am adversely effected by all manor of sensory offence — including motion in my peripheral, heat, smells, unpredictable vibration.
The real problem is that it's a downward spiral: if something is bothering me and I become agitated, I am far more likely to become aware of other things which conspire to keep me from being productive. Ultimately, I fall into a state of manic anxiety and get really down on myself for feeling so ineffective.
I really wish I could just put in earplugs. They irritate my ears.
