If your eyesight is bad, there are things YOU can do for YOURSELF to fix that problem, without asking anyone to change what THEY are doing.
The "quiet office" is something that only some people prefer. Many of us (I'm one of them) prefer noise - music playing, background noise, etc ... I find it hard to concentrate in silence, and I know more people like me.
To ask others to be silent to ask them to change how they comfortably work to suit you. Let everyone work how they work best.
So everyone should just adhere to how you want the world to be? yeah, that makes sense.
I'm not asking anyone to change what they are doing. I'm asking them to stfu and do their job. They are the ones interrupting me, and getting into my business. Your the one asking people to change themselves to conform to your preferences.
Actually, no. You're asking them to behave in the way you prefer. You see, humans aren't naturally driven to be quiet - we're a social animal. We have inbuilt need to communicate, and we're not built to sit in little boxes and stare at a screen in quiet all day. You're asking others to do that though, rather than embrace the natural way our minds prefer to work for many of us. You can use ear plugs, listen to white noise, use good noise canceling headsets, etc. You aren't at their mercy, no more than they are at yours. Your desire for quiet shouldn't overcome their desire for socializing/noise. Everyone should handle themselves, and not ask of others to concede to their wishes.
You are incorrect. We are social, just not all the time. Just because we like talking sometimes != we like being distracted all the time.
Study after study has shown that humans work better with less distractions, especially with office-type jobs (focus/thinking oriented). You may like it, and thats fine. Your also rounding back to my first point. It may be "natural" for us to talk, but that doesn't make it better. Glasses aren't "natural", but they sure help me out.
Additionally: noise-canceling headphones have been shown to cause long-term issues, and not everyone can use them.
> You aren't at their mercy, no more than they are at yours.
Simply untrue. I'm not injecting my quiet onto them. They are injecting their noise onto me. If I punched someone in the face everyday, would you say they are being rude by trying to get me to stop? They are, after all, hampering the "natural" urge for human violence.
We don't need to work in libraries, we need to just adapt.