Comparing syntactic highlighting to 'office noise' feels not right.
While the latter is intrusive to the process as it is both uncontrolled, disruptive and without benefit, the former provides contextualized information in support of the process under control of the user.
While the latter is intrusive to the process as it is both uncontrolled, disruptive and without benefit, the former provides contextualized information in support of the process under control of the user.