About eight o’clock, in an Amsterdam tram. A woman in her early twenties has her phone held out in front of her mouth (also known as ‘toast holding’ or cracker bubbles) and is happily chatting away. Her friend on the other end of the line is also on the tram. That’s obvious, because their conversation is on loudspeaker. Several crooked glances go to the woman in question, who does not seem to realize that everyone can follow her conversation. Or she realizes it, but she doesn’t care; that is also possible.
It’s called ‘bare beating’; listening to music, watching videos, playing messages or making phone calls in public, in a way that everyone can hear. This causes a lot of annoyance in already overcrowded public spaces and open-plan offices. Of course, not everyone may realize how far the sound of telephones carries, but still. After all: the bus, cinema and workplace are not a living room, but shared spaces. The social agreement is then to take each other into account.
Does this feel like ‘small beer’, in a world full of noise? Noisy renovations, neighbors who constantly listen to music with intense bass, living in a place where noisy events follow each other in rapid succession; it is no longer an exception. And there is still little room in society for recognition of the physical burden and mental frustration that noise can cause, let alone the fact that these types of less loud sounds can also cause a lot of annoyance.
Listening effort
Too often we think that sound is just part of it, says Judith Veen, sound expert at Heart2Hear, a consultancy firm on noise in the workplace. “But its consequences are greatly underestimated. Auditory stimuli take up a lot of our working capacity and are at the expense of our health.” From one research in which the agency participated, into noise pollution in the workplace, 54 percent appeared to be bothered by it. For 34 percent, this noise pollution also caused complaints, such as stress, poor sleep, forgetfulness, or cardiovascular problems.
Most people realize that you should not stand too close to the speakers at a festival or concert; It is not without reason that the use of earplugs has increased considerably. But less loud noise can also be problematic. A colleague who constantly makes telephone calls next to your desk will probably not lead to hearing problems, but it is annoying.
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This is, according to Veen, because the human brain constantly responds to sounds on its own. Even if it doesn’t concern us, or if we can only half understand it. “Brain research shows that this listening effort costs energy. This makes it difficult, for example, to read next to someone who is watching a video.”
The amount of noise is considerable these days, and not just in the workplace. “In a society with more noise, things start to pile up. We get irritated more quickly and are less able to relax, because it is rarely really quiet. Where there are people, there is noise, and we suffer from each other the most.”
“I am afraid that in the future we will be confronted with more rather than less auditory stimuli, from audio books and videos to hearing private conversations on the train,” fears Nicole Bekhuis, founder of the Tinnitus Academy, where people can be treated for persistent (phantom) noises in the ear, a brain disorder that affects about sixteen percent of the world’s population. “While silence is so important to relax your nervous system and the auditory part of your brain.”
Meanwhile, some people get annoyed more quickly than others. “Our brain can learn to filter out noises from outside. Think of the hum of the refrigerator that you no longer hear because you are used to it, until it suddenly makes a different sound.” So you can make yourself more resilient to noise, for example by keeping track of which sounds bother you the most and when. Why is that so? Does it distract from your book? Do you find it annoying that others do not take you into account? And what are other peripheral causes at times when you are particularly unable to cope?
“After a busy day, it is quite possible that you can tolerate less ambient noise,” says Bekhuis. “But be careful not to wear noise-canceling headphones as standard. That is a good short-term solution, but in the long term you can become oversensitive to noise.”
Conflict avoidant
The irritation factor of noise also increases when it comes from strangers. A man in the gym watching videos of his baby, with loud cooing in your ear while lifting weights: difficult. Is it your husband and your baby: a completely different story. It is often more difficult to approach a stranger about noise pollution. How do you avoid an uncomfortable discussion or physical reaction?
According to Tamara Janmaat, mediator and certified trainer in ‘nonviolent communication’ (according to a method once devised by American Marshall Rosenberg), a successful ‘intervention’ depends on whether it really benefits you from breaking in. “Many people find it difficult to say something about this type of nuisance. They want to avoid a conflict, are unsure about the other person’s reaction and find it difficult to make their point without sounding accusing.”
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The person whose phone keeps beeping during a theater performance: you can of course give them some disapproving looks, or else make a whispered comment, so that you in turn do not disturb others. But the colleague who makes it structurally impossible to read emails due to his noisy phone calls requires a more well-thought-out approach. After all, you see that person more often, and you don’t want to get into a war.
Janmaat: “I recommend not to react at the moment in such a situation, especially if the frustration has been building up for a while or if you know that you can be quite blunt.” More sensible: analyze what you want and what a solution could be and propose it in a quiet moment, while you keep it to yourself. So not: ‘you’re always on the phone and that’s terribly annoying’, but: ‘you called me five times today, and I notice that I find it difficult to concentrate on my work. Could you limit that to a maximum of one conversation, and do the rest in a call room?’
You can train that ‘calm response’ muscle, Janmaat believes. “By asking yourself why you find something irritating and by practicing it a few times, you can have a more constructive conversation. This will ultimately make it easier to improvise on public transport or the cinema, without immediately snapping at someone.” And of course you can also decide that it is not worth it. “Finding it more important to maintain harmony and to focus your attention on the performance is also a solution.”
Even a conflict expert can have difficulty with this. Janmaat: “I was recently sitting in a quiet compartment, where four people were chatting. Then I walked up to them and said: ‘We are in a quiet compartment. I deliberately sat here so that I could concentrate on my work and that is a bit difficult because I hear you talking. Could you perhaps be quiet or sit somewhere else?’ I found that quite exciting to do and it took a while before I gathered enough courage. But I was still glad I did it, because they were still quiet afterwards.”
Photos BRAM PETRAEUS