I was told by a friend in the educational-program-assessment industry that the more general form of this is “parallel play”—spending time in the physical company of someone else but doing your own thing. It’s more enjoyable than working alone, even if you’re not directly communicating, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s also more productive. Hence the existence of Coworking and similar programs. (I’m not familiar with that specific site, but it’s at least a good description of the concept. I can’t remember the name of the local office space where you can rent a desk for a day for this purpose.)
I was told by a friend in the educational-program-assessment industry that the more general form of this is “parallel play”—spending time in the physical company of someone else but doing your own thing. It’s more enjoyable than working alone, even if you’re not directly communicating, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s also more productive. Hence the existence of Coworking and similar programs. (I’m not familiar with that specific site, but it’s at least a good description of the concept. I can’t remember the name of the local office space where you can rent a desk for a day for this purpose.)
(Edited to fix broken link.)