Are they active noise cancelling? If so technically the FA should have just told you to turn them off during takeoff and landing. I wear mine all of the time, I get told to take them off about 2% of the time, and to just turn them off about 10% of the time. On mine the led that indicates they are on so I prefer to sit on the right side of the plane so the FAs don't see the red light and tell me to turn them off. It is much much nicer to have them on during the entire flight.