Memories of the 28th Century

I am becoming progressively less willing to accept noise, and the level of noise around me has been increasing for decades. To a large degree, the noise snuck up; it kept increasing a little bit at a time, and new things, devices, machines, etc. that made more noise were being devised all the time. Often they were more effective than earlier versions, so the noise was acceptable, but it has gotten so bad that I have to yell at the servers in Starbucks, because the machinery behind the counter makes so much noise that they sometimes can’t hear me, if I don’t yell.

I sometimes work in libraries, the erstwhile bastions of silence, but they have become tolerant of noise, chatter, loud conversation, machine noises, and so on, and that does not bode well for the future. Because some people have not learned that quiet is expected in some places.

It used to be that children were the great noisemakers, but the age has been increasing. One bright spot in the noise spectrum is that teenaged persons are using earbuds, so their noise is usually kept to themselves; although yesterday for the first time in a while heard a car with a really loud sound system with all of its windows open polluting the area with noise. People themselves aren’t major sources of noise in most places; it is more common for machines of various sorts to produce excessive noise.

While there are more machines producing noise, some machines a making less noise. For example, the noise level on streets is about the same as it was years ago, and the engines of cars aren’t often sources of noise; although tire noise is no less and sometimes more. Motorcycles are still quite noisy, but there are some that are a little less noisy. One thing that I often recall when I hear noisy vehicles is that it took energy to produce that noise; energy that someone paid for. That is true for all machinery; noise is wasted energy.

I was hoping to find a graph that compared preindustrial noise and present levels, but the best I found was the link about Virgin Atlantic trying to make jet engines quiet. Even if they manage to make each engine quieter, they will be using more engines, so the net effect will be little changed. But on the larger issues, before machines of various sorts started making noise that world was quieter. People and animals don’t make much noise by themselves; although there are screams and moose calls, and such, but those are nothing compared to a jet engine, as one example.

People aren’t designed for loud noise. Our hearing works very well for mid ranges, but loud noises damage or break the hairs in the cochlea, and those hairs aren’t repaired quickly; although they can regrow over time. The hairs break from extreme noise or overuse, but I couldn’t find anything that describes that in details. The finer hairs pick up the highest frequencies, and those hairs are most likely to break. As people age they lose the highest frequencies, and there is some loss of the lowest frequencies, but not as much. I can still remember that birdsongs were much more interesting and complicated when I was young, but now there seem to be gaps in the songs where the highest part are, see links below. Hearing loss is not the only negative effect of excess noise; other effects include higher blood pressure and psychological effects, and decreased birth weight. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_from_noise)

I probably should look into this more, but there doesn’t seem to be as much material about noise pollution as there is fiction about less important things. I usually am up and out by 5:00 AM, and one of the reasons for that is that I like the quiet. At that time of day there aren't many things going around making noise, and I can hear the garbage trucks more than a mile away, because nothing drowns out the noise. I can also hear the birds singing and chirping; sounds that are drowned out later in the day. As more people get going, there is more noise and the clarity of the noise decreases. I hope that few readers will take to rising early enough to hear the early sounds.

In earlier times I can imagine people listening to animals walking and grunting long before they could be seen. That would have made hunting easier and gathering vegetable foods safer. Now we go to markets where we hear the in store sound systems.



http://chchearing.org/noise/common-e...-noise-levels/
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/554566_3
https://www.virgin.com/travel/the-hi...oise-pollution
Details of hearing system
https://www.boundless.com/psychology...ion-162-12697/
http://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-we...r-these-sounds

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...is-harming-you

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_from_noise