All my co-workers wear those and I hate it. Any attempt to talk to them about work or personal subjects means they have to hit their ear and pause it. It just makes me want to say nothing.

That is by design, so they are not interrupted by random coworkers.

That could be an advantage if your work requires some kind of sustained concentration, for the other party at least.

I like using by headphones (which are big and over the ears) as a way to signal when I’m on concentration mode and don’t want to talk, but I do that maybe 30-40% of the time.