I doubt I would have thought twice about it if there wasn't a research article dropped into the middle of the piece that didn't really seem to justify anything that was being put forward. I would have just gone through the article, nodded, and read something else.

Once I skimmed the research article I was in a "research journal" frame of mind.

I don't necessarily think that "noise is bad for concentration" is an extraordinary claim, but it's an imprecise claim, and at the point where it's serious enough to start citing research sources, I want more meat. I'd like to know what we're defining as noise. How loud is it? What's the duration? What kind of content does the noise have? How are we defining concentration? If it's about productivity, how are we defining productivity? Since we're talking about stress hormones, what are the short and long term impacts of stress on our definition of productivity? How large is the impact? Does the type of work being done change the impact? Does is change across cultural boundaries? Does is change across age groups? Can one be conditioned to be more resistant to noise?

That might all be a bit pedantic and overwrought for the type of article this is, but that's the path I went down

For example, I can work without problems at quite a high level of noise if it is regular, like traffic noise.