Personal workspace is now extending into the sensory realm, as more employees are drowning out workplace noise with their iPod earbuds:

About 80% of technical and creative employees — programmers, engineers and graphics designers, for instance — listen to music for more than 20% of their working hours, said Tom Nolle of CIMI Corp., a New Jersey-based research and consulting firm.

“It’s only been within the last 15 months or so that MP3 players have become the main source of workplace music,” Nolle said.

The technology is ushering in new social conventions at such companies as Chicago’s Closerlook Inc., a strategic communications firm where 35 employees work in loft-like spaces.

Wearing ear buds or headphones telegraphs the message ” ‘Unless it’s urgent, please do not disturb,’ ” said David Ormesher, the firm’s founder and chief executive. “It’s almost like you’re in an office and you have a closed door or an open door. There’s new sensibilities around when you can interrupt and when you can’t.”

Obviously, this simply doesn’t work in most vocations. A factory worker, salesperson, or customer service rep can’t deafen him/herself on a consistent basis and still do the job (at least, not for long). So this phenomenon is mostly confined to the classic backroom cubicle rats, who almost never have to deal directly with the customers or be on the phone very much. (I’m guessing these iPod-heads can’t make a habit of missing too many incoming calls.)

To me, this is not the ideal workspace. You’re isolating yourself from your surroundings, and I don’t think it’s really for the purposes of focus. It conveys a preference that no one bug you, and that you’d just as soon not be in the office in the first place.

I’ve used my iPod in the office to provide a workday soundtrack. But I’d never used the earbuds in those instances — I’d hook the iPod to my Mac and play the songs through the computer’s speakers, and at a volume where I wasn’t inflicting my sounds on others (which wasn’t always an issue anyway, on weekends or in my private office). I didn’t mistake my office for my home, which is more or less what’s going on in some offices.