Our minds are crying out for silence in an over-stimulating world. But is silence only for the wealthy? And can too much of it harm rather than help us?

Hosted by Matt Armitage & Richard Bradbury

Produced by Richard Bradbury for BFM89.9

Episode Sources: 

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25533990-700-the-power-of-quiet-the-mental-and-physical-health-benefits-of-silence/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJsuUOuEZ9Q

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2452161304806914

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-51174-001

Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash

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Richard Bradbury: Silence. It’s one of those stranger things that make us feel calm in one circumstance and unsettled in another. It can be companionable or make you feel entirely isolated. Matt Armitage wants to know if silence can bring us together.

Richard Bradbury: Me, I disconnect from you.

Matt Armitage:

• This is part of my ongoing mission to make Richard read out obscure and ancient song lyrics on air.

• It’s not quite as random and self-indulgent as it sounds.

• Ideas of transmutation – hybrid human-machines – robot overlords and questioning where technology is taking us.

• We assume all of these things are new because the technology is new.

• That ours is the first generation to experience the existential dread of technology.

• But the opposite is true.

• Throughout human history, we’ve questioned the role that technology plays in it.

• From millennia before the Luddites formed to oppose the mechanisation that created the industrial revolution.

• As synth pop and rock developed in the 1970s, you started to see this utopian / dystopian divide between artists.

• Broadly, Kraftwerk on one side and Gary Numan on the other.

• You go back to records like Numan’s Replicas, The Pleasure Principle and Telekon and you find all these subjects we talk about on the show:

• Alienation, surveillance capitalism, dependence.

Richard Bradbury: Me, I disconnect from you?

Matt Armitage:

• The arch joke would be to have you say nothing except that phrase for the rest of the show.

• It would demonstrate the encroaching influence of technology. How external forces shape our actions.

• And that increasingly our thoughts are not our own.

• But on the basis that it would be both cruel and boring – mainly the latter.

• I’m not going to do that.

• Gary Numan’s song was about alienation and isolation.

• But increasingly we’re told to disconnect our physical selves from the digital world.

• And over the past few weeks we’ve talked about neuroscientists concerned that digital technology is reshaping our brains.

• We talked about the cortical thinning that is being discovered at younger ages amongst particularly heavy users of technology.

• We know that putting cut-offs in place can be beneficial.

• Regular self-imposed screen-free moments, even ones lasting just a few minutes, can improve our mood.

• Help to regulate the effects that those devices are having on stress-related chemical production in our bodies.

Richard Bradbury: So we’re not really looking at how much disconnection or isolation is good for us, or the reverse case, how much disconnection might be harmful…

Matt Armitage:

• If we go back into this show’s distant past, we’ve often talked about that Gary Numan approach – that technology itself creates isolation.

• Before we all disappeared into the 19th dimension of Covid, we often spoke about the Mukbang trend.

• Solitary south Koreans watching videos of other people eating as a way to feel less alone.

• I’ve always eaten alone – I don’t really understand its social significance;

• it’s easier to talk to people when they aren’t shovelling food into their mouths.

• So clearly there are a lot of competing factors.

• We have technology-induced isolation.

• The converse of that is what we experienced in the 19th dimension – technology connecting us.

• Then we have the compulsion to use technology, to doom scroll, that anxiety inducing dependence.

• At the other extreme are the experts suggesting we should disconnect more to be happy.

• And as you mentioned, we don’t necessarily look too deeply at what that idea of disconnecting more actually means.

Richard Bradbury: Embracing silence, perhaps?

Matt Armitage:

• Thing is, it’s never that simple.

• A couple of episodes back we were talking about smart cities and the benefit of green and blue spaces.

• We looked at the idea that spending time in parks and nature is good for you.

• Which is one of the reasons that a lot of progressive urban planners and developers are wrapping streets and buildings in greenery.

• And creating all these urban spaces that act as an environmental release valve, these very leafy,

• So time spent in green spaces is good for you.

• Spending time around water is good for you.

• What’s best for you is spending time around water in nature.

• It’s the same deal with disconnecting and silence.

• Some people disconnect by going to those places where you can smash up old TVs and furniture.

• Not much silence there. Ditto a club or bar. Do you get what I mean?

Richard Bradbury: [Replies]

Matt Armitage:

• Even silence. The wrong kind of silence can be harmful.

• I’ve been fascinated by anechoic chambers for years.

• This big fancy words means non-reflecting. Again, we often forget that sound travels in waves.

• It’s directional. And it bounces off surfaces: when you walk along a busy road flanked by skyscrapers on both sides.

• You get that feeling of being overwhelmed by the noise. It’s all around you and it’s hard to pinpoint where individual sounds come from.

• Because the sound waves are bouncing around, reflecting off all those steel and glass structures.

• Anechoic chambers are designed to prevent those reflections.

• Before you start thinking it’s just sound proofing, it isn’t.

• A sound proofed room can have all kinds of reflections.

• Recording studios, concert halls, even clubs, are often build to create certain sound patterns within them.

• But they may be sound-proofed to prevent the noise leaking outside.

• In the case of clubs and concert venues, it might be because there are local residents and its to reduce the noise pollution.

• In recording studios you want pristine environments where sound can’t leak from a studio to the control room, or from one soundstage to another.

Richard Bradbury: So anechoic chambers limit the noise within them, rather than isolating the sound from people outside them?

Matt Armitage:

• Yeah. Which might sound like a weird reason to exist.

• And chamber is the right phrase. Often there’s a suspended mesh floor for the person inside to walk on.

• There’s special sound absorbing waffles on every surface, even under the mesh floor.

• To try and bring those reflections to as close to point zero as possible.

• And despite their complexity and cost – think about all the sound proofing you need just to stop noise coming into the chamber from the outside.

• They’re more common than we think: there are actually plenty of reasons for having them.

• Academic and research institutes researching noise and its impacts.

• Behaviourists looking at sensory deprivation.

• Commercially, a lot of computer and electrical companies have them.

• They’re very useful to companies that make microphones and amplifiers for example.

Richard Bradbury: Are you back to guitar YouTube?

Matt Armitage:

• A little. One of my favourite examples of the chamber in use is by Ola Englund, a Swedish metal YouTuber.

• He filmed a video of himself playing guitar inside an anechoic chamber owned by Japanese music company Boss in Tokyo.

• And it’s really instructive to see how the sound changes as moves around the room recording his own guitar.

• Unless he’s directly in front of the amplifier, there’s almost no sound.

• And when he turns the face of the microphone to the wall, there’s no sound at all.

Richard Bradbury: Which is interesting because?

Matt Armitage:

• We’re not designed for silence. Which is the point of today’s episode.

• How long do you think you could last inside an anechoic chamber?

Richard Bradbury: replies

Matt Armitage:

• Would you be surprised to hear that the world record is only one hour and seven minutes?

• I think it’s still the record.

• Which was created by a writer for the UNILAD news platform.

• Not long, is it? And then comes back to the quality of the silence.

• Inside an anechoic chamber there are none of the usual external stimuli that fill our ears.

• You can hear your heart beat, some people even hear the noise of their own blood moving through the carotid artery.

• Others have been deafened by their own tinnitus.

• If they’re in the chamber in the dark, their eyes may start to create colours.

• After about half an hour, some people experience hallucinations.

• Quite a lot of people run out after only a few seconds.

Richard Bradbury: In a real sense: Me, I disconnect from you?

Matt Armitage:

• Yes. Dislocated even. As I said, we’re not designed for silence.

• We’ll have to get into it after the break, but the idea here is to look at what the research is saying about the kind of silence, the kind of peace that benefits us.

• Meditation, for example.

• Floatation tanks.

• Sitting in a quiet room without a screen. Gazing at a rock pool.

Richard Bradbury: We had enough of hippy matt the last time.

Matt Armitage:

• Don’t worry, I won’t get too wistful.

• It’s not just about what types of silence or tranquillity are good for us, but how much of them is good for us.

• Hence the example of the anechoic chamber – if you’re hallucinating after half an hour,

• It might not be the kind of environment you want to pop into just before a presentation.

• Whereas, it might be beneficial to go off and do five minutes of guided meditation.

• By the way, my new mindfulness series, the dawning of the apocalypse, is now available as an audio enabled NFT.

• It’s a new concept blending mindfulness and despair.

• There are an exclusive two copies available, Richard already has one.

• But that’s only because I have the password to his crypto wallet.

• You can buy it while we head for a break.

Richard Bradbury: We’ll be back once I’ve Googled larceny and called the police. I believe Matt is taking a quiet moment to consider his defence.

BREAK

Richard Bradbury: We’re back. And with the police report lodged and a useless NFT in my wallet, it’s time to listen to some silence.

INSERT: [Can we have some dead air – I’m not sure how long is appropriate]

Matt Armitage:

• I thought of playing a clip of some white noise there, but then realised that silence itself is a better option?

• And I’m wondering how it made the listener feel.

• Certainly not peaceful or relaxed.

• Because silence out of context can be unsettling, uncomfortable. Even frightening,

• Look at the way silence is used in horror movies.

• Seconds later you’ll get a jump scare, usually very loud.

• The silence is used to flatten the screen experience, create a moment of confusion and create tension.

Richard Bradbury: Is that because – in an evolutionary sense – we aren’t built for silence?

Matt Armitage:

• Yes, so this is where this episode kind of goes hand in hand with the smart city episode.

• Because you’re right we are evolutionarily attuned to noise.

• The noises of prey and predators. Noises that allowed to hunt and to outwit our own hunters.

• The noises of incoming weather or approaching natural disaster.

• I don’t just mean volcanoes and earthquakes: nature’s more mundane like a boulder tumbling down a rock space.

• Or a coconut falling from a tree above you.

• And we have a physical, chemical reaction to those noises – they prepare the body for what could happen next.

• So all those fight or flight circuits are activated – we become more alert, blood is pumped to the muscles.

• And our brain is flooded with chemicals.

• And because we live in noisy and often urban environments, those triggers are always going off, which can harm our health.

• For example, we spoke recently about the way that mobile devices are designed to interrupt.

• They ping and flash and interrupt our thoughts to grab our attention.

• I don’t know about you but I always have my phone set to silent.

• I find the constant pinging for notification too distracting.

Richard Bradbury: I think most of us are aware of the damage that noise can do – in terms of those biological harms. But what are the scientific benefits of silence?

Matt Armitage:

• Again – many thanks to New Scientist for doing the hard work of putting evidence together so that I can use it in this show.

• Check out The power of quiet by Kayt Sukel which expands on what we’re discussing today.

• And details the writer’s own experience in trying to find the right kind of silence for her.

Richard Bradbury: It still feels very strange to hear a phrase like ‘the right kind of silence’.

Matt Armitage:

• I know – but as I pointed out with the anechoic chamber example in the first part of the show.

• Some forms of silence are too extreme for some people.

• But the right kind of silence can help to nudge us into a relaxed or meditative state.

• Which we already know can create a host of benefits from a reduction in stress to a relief from chronic pain.

• NS uses the example of research by Eric Pfeiffer and his colleagues at Germany’s Catholic University of Applied Sciences.

• Where they actually compared different kinds of silent experiences.

• Which suggested that people would prefer to give themselves a painful electric shock.

• Rather than be left alone with their own thoughts.

• They found that the subjects welcomed the experience and felt positive about being removed from a phone or laptop.

Richard Bradbury: Is that mostly an issue of replicability?

Matt Armitage:

• It’s true that a lot of experiments are hard to replicate.

• Results can vary enormously. And that seems to be particularly the case in the social sciences.

• Pfeiffer makes the point that we now know a lot more about the benefits of unplugging, just as we’re more aware of the harms the devices can bring.

• And they make the further point that the subjects used in the experiments could have been of very different states of mind.

• He points out that for someone who is already in a stress-filled state of mind, plunging them into a silent environment is not likely to benefit them.

• That idea of being alone with your thoughts doesn’t help if you’re currently trying to escape from them.

Richard Bradbury: What were some of the other forms of silence that Pfeiffer and his team compared?

Matt Armitage:

• According to NS they experimented with 15 periods of silence in a variety of setting.

• Some were solitary, others within a group. Some were inside, and others were outside.

• There were guided sessions and unsupervised ones. Some where relaxing music was played at times, others where there was none.

• While they found that the majority of sessions were of at least some benefit to the subjects,

• the ones that were most beneficial seemed to be guided sessions in a natural setting like a park along with intermittent relaxing music or meditation.

Richard Bradbury: That doesn’t seem very practical for most of us?

Matt Armitage:

• Well, that is a good point in an of itself.

• Which I’ll get to in a moment. Pfeiffer’s team makes the point that all of those experiences of silence were beneficial.

• So it’s more about finding the ones that are workable for you.

• My own experience with mindfulness meditation hasn’t been great – I find it hard to get into that relaxed state.

• Even with guided sessions from apps. I guess maybe there’s a difference between someone actually being there.

• And helping you to correct your physical responses as they occur.

• But that brings me to a central point in this discussion: cost.

• Is silence price sensitive? Is it most readily available to those with the most resources?

• The places we live in are becoming noisier.

• According to the WHO, many cities now far exceed the recommended 40db limit of background noise at night.

Richard Bradbury: If someone isn’t familiar with sound levels in decibels. What are some examples they can use?

Matt Armitage:

• For starters, we have to remember that sounds are not all equal.

• A police siren at 110 decibels is not just loud. It’s intermittent.

• Remember we used that example of silence in horror movies to create a pause for the next increase in volume.

• Those classic orchestral stabs in the movie Psycho are a great example. As is the duh duh. Duh duh in Jaws.

• So the emergency vehicle siren is designed to penetrate your hearing, to fluctuate and create attention.

• You might find a lawnmower or leaf blower much more annoying and intrusive than a siren even though they are quieter at around 90db.

• Because they are a constant drone that may continue for extended periods.

• NS uses the example of the rustling of leaves at about 20db. A sound many of us find relaxing.

• Conversation in a restaurant is routinely around 60db. Anything above 85db for an extended period can lead to hearing loss.

• While long term exposure to noise above 50db has been linked to health issues, ranging from sleep disruption to cardiovascular concerns.

• But the most instructive example is probably the dripping tap: the WHO recommended limit for noise at night is 40db.

• A dripping tap is roughly 40db. And that’s one of the most annoying sounds known to humankind.

Richard Bradbury: Where does the issue of wealth come in? Is a dripping tap less annoying if you’re wealthy?

Matt Armitage:

• Probably even more so. Because you’re more likely to be living in a fairly silent environment.

• You may be living in a residential enclave far from through traffic, highways, railways and all the noise of a commercial city.

• For someone living in a simple apartment next to a rumbling highway, that dripping tap might not even figure as background noise.

• If you’re in a high-end, inner-city apartment, you’re likely to have the kind of thick glazing that blocks the noise of the train line below your window.

• You have the kind of thick walls or sound proofing that isolates you from the noises of neighbours, not just to your side but above and below you, too.

• There’s the great episode of Friends where the loveable characters can’t understand why a downstairs neighbour hates them so much.

• Until, after his death, they spend time in his apartment and can hear what their lives sound like to him transmitted through his ceiling.

• That’s one of the examples of the wealth divide when it comes to silence.

Richard Bradbury: And then there’s that aspect of how much it costs to find tranquillity?

Matt Armitage:

• Yeah. So the article and the various experts make the point that just finding a few minutes of solitude will be beneficial.

• Locking yourself in the bathroom for 5 minutes a day, for example.

• Most of us have time and the resources to do that.

• It’s attainable. For most of us, having enough money to pay for a guide to help us through 15 minutes of silence is not realistic.

• Either logistically or monetarily.

• One treatment that seems to benefit a lot of the people who try it are floatation tanks.

• You know, those sensory deprivation tanks. A dark, quiet environment where you float on a suspension of water and Epsom salts heated to body temperature.

• Usually for about an hour.

• Have you tried those?

Richard Bradbury: replies

Matt Armitage:

• I’ve done it a couple of times. Both were gifts.

• I have to admit I was really fascinated to try it but I was a little disappointed.

• And I think that’s entirely my own fault. My own approach.

• I would get antsy and itchy. I’ve found that floating in a pool or the sea in Malaysia is pretty similar because the water is often pretty close to body temperature.

• But the main reason I haven’t experimented more with floatation sessions is cost.

• They are expensive to operate – that water you float on has to be pumped out and cleaned or replaced.

• The machinery to provide the tanks is costly. How many people can one tank serve in a day?

• So this becomes something that you can only routinely benefit from if you have the resources.

Richard Bradbury: Are local governments doing anything to mitigate noise?

Matt Armitage:

• That’s where we come back to those smart city evolutions.

• Like the Toronto Quayside we talked about a few weeks ago.

• Creating that green lung, that city forest that people can escape into and that is free of traffic.

• Creating pedestrian areas. Softening the environment with sound absorbing materials rather than just having all these reflective glass surfaces that amplify sounds.

• Other cities have changed how airplanes use the skies above them.

• Decreasing the volume of overflights and increasing their height, for example.

• Bans on leaf blowers.

• Limiting the amount of noise you can make at night.

• Like the Swiss courtesy of not flushing toilets between 10pm and 7am.

• Putting up noise screens along busy urban roads in residential zones.

• Limiting commercial and goods traffic in certain places to specific times of day.

• Introducing congestion charges and increasing public transport.

• Switching to buses with quieter engines.

• City managers are increasingly aware of the physical and social costs of noise and are moving to limit them.

• But at that personal level – we really have to experiment and find the types of silence that work for us.

• And the ones that are achievable. That might be feeding the ducks in the park.

• It might be sitting quietly in the bathroom for 10 minutes a day.

• And probably avoiding anechoic chambers at all costs.