4 ms·

I'll bite. From my biased viewpoint, based on who complains most, people prefer the quiet more as they get older. Kids don't seem to care, middle aged prefer so

I'll bite. From my biased viewpoint, based on who complains most, people prefer the quiet more as they get older. Kids don't seem to care, middle aged prefer some separation, and my elders can be derailed by a greeting. I've always assumed it was the skill to tune out, but perhaps theirs are weightier thoughts. Personally, I need some mindless noise in the background, but nothing with any meaningful signal. The noise keeps me slightly alert and keeps the bored parts of my mind busy (like reading ingredient labels in the bathroom). The rest of my mind can then concentrate. When I was a kid, I was a walking hazard if I let my mind wander too much, and have walked straight into walls (I'm assuming sight to be an even higher bandwidth signal than hearing, but perhaps it lacks the same interrupts?) While complete silence is certainly soothing, it won't spin my mind up either. There's strong utility in getting zeroed out in silence, and I bet it pays off, but I have few opportunities for that (work in a plant, ride a motorcycle, and apartment is near train tracks). But the rumble of the Harley and wind is soothing too; that's where I think or decompress usually. I find airports nearly impossible to sleep in (two terrible childhood overnight stays). But a train is lovely. One had a detached mumbling voice, the other a lulling rumbling with random clacks like rain. Perhaps there's some way to run a controlled experiment to figure out if it's the quality of the noise that does it?

wissler 13y ago
As we age it appears that it's harder to filter out distractions: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081125181035.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081125181035.ht...
hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
> I'll bite. From my biased viewpoint, based on who complains most, people prefer the quiet more as they get older. Kids don't seem to care, middle aged prefer some separation, and my elders can be derailed by a greeting. Or maybe, older people complain more about noise because they actually know what sane conditions are and how life was back when ADD wasn't a thing yet.
- crazygringo 13y ago
  I was going to say something similar -- that it might not be because of age, but rather intelligence and self-awareness. "Kids don't seem to care", but kids also often don't have the slightest idea of what's good for them. They might prefer to study with the TV on instead of in silence, but that doesn't mean their studying isn't worse because of it.
  - HCIdivision17 13y ago
    My thought (ha!) is that as one ages, there's just more context to swap into to think about something. Kids can flit about because everything around them doesn't overwhelm with context, whereas the elderly have experienced enough that any context switch carries a burdensome overhead. (That's what I meant by weighty thoughts.) I don't think intelligence has too much to do with it, except perhaps in overall speed in coping / filtering. (But here I'm just arguing about the number of teeth in a horse; the empiricist in me would like to be able to spend a few weeks with an academic article subscription to just survey the experiments that have been done. I bet there are lots!)
- eru 13y ago
  I read about some interview with people from before cars were common. They liked how much cleaner and quieter (!) the streets were with cars than with horses.
- HCIdivision17 13y ago
  I would agree, but the article spends a lot of time in the past too. Cities weren't quiet in the olden days, and even the countryside is remarkably noisy with life. 'Course, nothin' beats the distraction potential of the modern Internet (as my reply is demonstrating), so I can't fully discount it.
  - joeyh 13y ago
    Yes, the countryside can be quite full of sound. For example, the cidadas are going outside my windows this evening. But there is a difference between hearing this natural sound and hearing a siren every ten minutes, the swish of tires every minute, the voices of unknown people intermittently, etc. I think the reason so many turn to constantly on music in the city is it drowns out the more subconciously distressing sounds with sounds that are familiar, that repeat, that you control. Since moving to the country, I only put on music when I want to really listen to it, to the exclusion of all else.
agumonkey 13y ago
In the noise/age relation lies a little frequency thing, when you don't have regular event of mind-flow, you care about not disrupting them. A dev I know and I experienced another strong disrupting setup: having unsimilarly thinking person near you (colleagues, parents). Their mere presence shuts you down even if they make no sound. As soon as they left, your mind fills the room. Comparing airport (place) with train (vehicle) is not fair. With large enough seats and no AC a plane is as nice as a train. Engine sound filtering through ~= rain sound. I stumbled upon laptop fan recordings, the low freq air flow has the same texture and effect as an engine. Guess fest explanation : pre-birth frequencies heard through the mother's body.
- HCIdivision17 13y ago
  You're absolutely right about the comparison. My bad.
  - agumonkey 13y ago
    No problem
notacoward 13y ago
I've become more sensitive to noise and auditory interruptions as I've gotten older. I don't think it's because I'm thinking weightier thoughts, or because my general multi-tasking ability has decreased. In support of that last point I'll add that visual interruptions don't seem nearly as annoying. I don't think there's anything wrong with my hearing at a purely physical level, either. However, I do think the effort of converting the sounds of spoken language into meaning has become more stressful. For the same reason, I positively loathe it when two people keep interrupting and talking over one another. One person talking plus random noise is OK (though not ideal); two people talking will make me angry very quickly. So it's not the ear, it's not the conscious part of the brain, it's the piece in between. I don't know if my experience is the same as anyone else's, but it's certainly consistent with observations I've made over the years. Some people just aren't as good at turning sound into words, and some get worse at it as they age. Maybe those who are lucky in that regard should show some consideration for others around them.

wissler 13y ago

As we age it appears that it's harder to filter out distractions: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081125181035.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081125181035.ht...

hcarvalhoalves 13y ago

> I'll bite. From my biased viewpoint, based on who complains most, people prefer the quiet more as they get older. Kids don't seem to care, middle aged prefer some separation, and my elders can be derailed by a greeting. Or maybe, older people complain more about noise because they actually know what sane conditions are and how life was back when ADD wasn't a thing yet.

crazygringo 13y ago
I was going to say something similar -- that it might not be because of age, but rather intelligence and self-awareness. "Kids don't seem to care", but kids also often don't have the slightest idea of what's good for them. They might prefer to study with the TV on instead of in silence, but that doesn't mean their studying isn't worse because of it.
- HCIdivision17 13y ago
  My thought (ha!) is that as one ages, there's just more context to swap into to think about something. Kids can flit about because everything around them doesn't overwhelm with context, whereas the elderly have experienced enough that any context switch carries a burdensome overhead. (That's what I meant by weighty thoughts.) I don't think intelligence has too much to do with it, except perhaps in overall speed in coping / filtering. (But here I'm just arguing about the number of teeth in a horse; the empiricist in me would like to be able to spend a few weeks with an academic article subscription to just survey the experiments that have been done. I bet there are lots!)
eru 13y ago
I read about some interview with people from before cars were common. They liked how much cleaner and quieter (!) the streets were with cars than with horses.
HCIdivision17 13y ago
I would agree, but the article spends a lot of time in the past too. Cities weren't quiet in the olden days, and even the countryside is remarkably noisy with life. 'Course, nothin' beats the distraction potential of the modern Internet (as my reply is demonstrating), so I can't fully discount it.
- joeyh 13y ago
  Yes, the countryside can be quite full of sound. For example, the cidadas are going outside my windows this evening. But there is a difference between hearing this natural sound and hearing a siren every ten minutes, the swish of tires every minute, the voices of unknown people intermittently, etc. I think the reason so many turn to constantly on music in the city is it drowns out the more subconciously distressing sounds with sounds that are familiar, that repeat, that you control. Since moving to the country, I only put on music when I want to really listen to it, to the exclusion of all else.

agumonkey 13y ago

In the noise/age relation lies a little frequency thing, when you don't have regular event of mind-flow, you care about not disrupting them. A dev I know and I experienced another strong disrupting setup: having unsimilarly thinking person near you (colleagues, parents). Their mere presence shuts you down even if they make no sound. As soon as they left, your mind fills the room. Comparing airport (place) with train (vehicle) is not fair. With large enough seats and no AC a plane is as nice as a train. Engine sound filtering through ~= rain sound. I stumbled upon laptop fan recordings, the low freq air flow has the same texture and effect as an engine. Guess fest explanation : pre-birth frequencies heard through the mother's body.

HCIdivision17 13y ago
You're absolutely right about the comparison. My bad.
- agumonkey 13y ago
  No problem

notacoward 13y ago

I've become more sensitive to noise and auditory interruptions as I've gotten older. I don't think it's because I'm thinking weightier thoughts, or because my general multi-tasking ability has decreased. In support of that last point I'll add that visual interruptions don't seem nearly as annoying. I don't think there's anything wrong with my hearing at a purely physical level, either. However, I do think the effort of converting the sounds of spoken language into meaning has become more stressful. For the same reason, I positively loathe it when two people keep interrupting and talking over one another. One person talking plus random noise is OK (though not ideal); two people talking will make me angry very quickly. So it's not the ear, it's not the conscious part of the brain, it's the piece in between. I don't know if my experience is the same as anyone else's, but it's certainly consistent with observations I've made over the years. Some people just aren't as good at turning sound into words, and some get worse at it as they age. Maybe those who are lucky in that regard should show some consideration for others around them.