Noise Pollution

Irritability, sleeplessness, muscle tension and fatigue are all potentially caused by too much noise. Was Schopenhauer right when he called noise the "most impertinent of interruptions"? This week, we discuss the issue of noise pollution... ...as quietly as we can.

The European Environment Agency estimates there are 10,000 premature deaths from noise exposure each year. So why are our cities noisier than ever and what can we do about it? We debate whether susceptibility to noise correlates with age, explore the idea of information overload and ask why we get drawn into the promise of stimulation even when it may be causing us harm. Finally, we share strategies for counteracting and coping with the noisy world around us.

A few things we mentioned in this podcast:

- Cities are reportedly noisier than ever https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/apr/25/cities-are-louder-than-ever-and-its-the-poor-who-suffer-most
- European Environment Agency report: Noise in Europe 2014 https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/noise-in-europe-2014
- Associations between screen time and lower psychological well-being among children and adolescents https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6214874/
- Shift Blog: How to avoid notification overload https://tryshift.com/blog/tips-tricks/how-to-avoid-notification-overload/
- Noise: How to overcome the high, hidden cost of inconsistent decision making https://hbr.org/2016/10/noise
- Paris bids to turn volume down in ‘City of Noise’ https://www.thelocal.fr/20150311/officials-to-turn-down-the-volume-on-paris/
- Decibel Hell: The effects of living in a noisy world https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1253729/

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