I'm not a big fan of these articles. It depends on what you're doing. I'm a professor, and in order to get certain tasks done, you need a private space. I don't even know how you could grade exams, for instance, without a private space in order to concentrate and prevent others from seeing what you're doing. When I'm working on a paper, on the other hand, it's way more productive to have my coauthors right next to me.
The effect on productivity therefore cannot be determined without knowing what you're going to be doing.
I do find these articles fascinating from the perspective of an economist. Economists frequently assume workers get paid based on their productivity. Then we see that in the real world employers are willing to adopt an open office model that workers hate, even one that can reduce productivity, because they want to monitor the workers to see what they are doing. If workers were paid according to productivity, it wouldn't matter how many times they checked Facebook between 8 am and 5 pm.
The effect on productivity therefore cannot be determined without knowing what you're going to be doing.
I do find these articles fascinating from the perspective of an economist. Economists frequently assume workers get paid based on their productivity. Then we see that in the real world employers are willing to adopt an open office model that workers hate, even one that can reduce productivity, because they want to monitor the workers to see what they are doing. If workers were paid according to productivity, it wouldn't matter how many times they checked Facebook between 8 am and 5 pm.