Open-plan offices are making us less social

These make workers want to communicate electronically rather than face-to-face

In recent years, a number of big companies — IBM, Bank of America, Aetna, Yahoo! under former chief executive officer Marissa Mayer — cut back on their telecommuting programs in the name of more interaction and cooperation between employees, supposedly fostered by being stuck together in an office. The business model of companies providing co-working spaces, such as $20 billion “unicorn” WeWork, is also based on the proposition that if people find themselves in a shared space, they’ll network and cooperate more.
 
It doesn’t quite work like that, though, recent research shows. At the office, be it a corporate