Professor explores implications of too much noise

Close your eyes and listen to the sounds inside your office, on the street corner or in the mall. Have you thought about the impact the rattle of your computer, the hum of the traffic, or buzz of the overhead lights have on you?

Dr. Marcia Epstein, professor in the Faculty of Communication and Culture, says that too often we underestimate our sense of hearing and the effect of noise and silence within our environment. "Learning how to use our auditory sense to listen consciously and be aware of soundscapes can have important implications for our health and social interaction," she says.

Epstein describes a soundscape as much like a landscape, but instead of being composed of the visual, it is the combination of sounds that are around us in any given moment. Epstein and her students engage in research on mapping the soundscapes in locations from hospitals and shopping malls, to city streets and farms. "We listen to the ambient sounds of a place at different times of day, describe the sounds, where they come from, how long they last, and the loudness of them."

Epstein argues that as our culture evolves and new technologies are developed, as the population increases and industry encroaches on farm land - all of these have the potential to alter the soundscape in any environment from the wide-open prairies to the office. She explores the physical, health and social implications of soundscapes in our personal and public environments and the interrelations between noise, speech and silence.

"People don't protect their hearing, they take it for granted. For example, the volume capacity of any mp3 player is capable of damaging hearing," she says. "There are no laws or public awareness campaigns that protect people from listening too loudly." But as Epstein is finding, the implications are even more complicated.

"Use of mp3 players also produces personal isolation to the point that interpersonal communication might prove to be endangered," she says. "Children who are raised on mp3 players have fewer opportunities to develop habitual skills like cooperation and might be less able to deal effectively with situations where they have to act as a group."

Mp3 players create a highly personalized soundscape, but often the noise in our environments comes from public spaces, making it an inescapable stressor. Noise, in fact, can increase instances of insomnia and migrane headaches, and contribute to stress-related diseases such as cardiovascular disease and stroke.

"Hospitals themselves are noisy places," Epstein says. "The noise of the machinery in hospital rooms and the sleep interruption patients face because of nearby conversations, or a noisy cart being pushed down the hallway increases stress levels and disrupts the healing process.

"For Epstein, tuning into the noises in our environments is the first step to identifying potential problems. Eliminating noise by creating quiet zones or implementing soothing sounds through music or windchimes are some of the ways to combat the negative stressors of noise in public spaces.