
Ask HN: How many HNers strongly prefer silence at home? - personlurking
The article from a few days ago (&quot;This is your brain on silence&quot;) got me wondering how many of us here search out silence at home? And if so, why?<p>As I get older, I&#x27;m finding my preference for silence increases. Nature sounds are included in my definition of silence, thus I&#x27;m more talking about an aversion to man-made noise. I want my home to be free of noise and commotion, as those two things, in my mind, are related to the outside world and being in public. Basically, I want that option and contrast to always exist, between public and private…and I think an attempt at silence should be the norm, even in public (which makes me think I might enjoy living in Japan).<p>In terms of why I feel the way I do, well, I&#x27;m not quite sure (but it may have to do with liking nature, being an introvert, a minimalist, a writer, and with growing up in a house where silence was a pipe dream).
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yojo
I suspect it may have something to do with the sensory processing dial on
introverts being a little jacked up. You may find this paper interesting:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3409988/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3409988/)

This bit rings true for me at least:

"We present evidences that support the existance of key neural connectivity
between the [highly sensitive trait], higher sensory processing sensitivity,
introversion, ectomorphism and creativity... [these] people may process, at
the same time, larger amounts of sensory information than usual, making this
trait an excellent model to pick up subtle environmental details and cues.
However, they feel easily worn out, overwhelmed and exhausted because they
sense every single detail while interacting with their environment.[3,4] To
recover from such attainable sensory overload, these individuals require more
quiet time daily to be alone, as well as additional longer sleep times than
those without the HS trait."

~~~
andrewtbham
I identify with a lot of what is being said here.

I have a friend that leaves the TV on all the time and it drives me crazy.

I can't find anything in big stores, I don't see how people do it.

I sleep a lot. 10 or 12 hours regularly.

I find myself recently being drawn toward meditation.

Strangely I have always thought that I was not intuitive. I make less eye
contact than most people but I am noticing that I notice stuff about people
that most people don't. I make so little eye contact, I have thought I have
face blindness.

This story reminds of the one about the Maine hermit a few days ago. He claims
to avoid looking a people's face because there is "so much information there."
He was also very creative.

~~~
atmosx
Jesus, that's my mirror image.

\+ My girlfriend makes me watch movies that she never watches. When the movie
starts I get sucked in (a movie which I didn't wanna see in first place) and
then she starts talking about something else. Trying to keep up both with the
movie and her conversations drives me crazy. I talked about this with another
two guys, which I like and respect because of their knowledge depth, both came
up with same answer: Women (usually) do many things at the same time without
paying attention to any of those things. They are able to watch a movie, talk
to the phone, listen to the radio... All together.

I feel seriously deprived when I realise I can't do any of those things
combined (without getting really, really angry).

~~~
andrewtbham
I had the same experience once. I decided that it's more important to pay
attention to the girl, just ignore the movie and watch it later. When Tivo
came out it was like a life saver cuz I could pause live tv and focus on
whatever interrupted me.

------
patio11
_which makes me think I might enjoy living in Japan_

Tokyo will disabuse you of this notion fairly rapidly. If you want pin-drop
silence you have to either get out to nature or pay for private space. The
substitute for silence that much of Japan uses is a social bubble. There's a
polite fiction that things outside one's own bubble don't exist, and polite
society is extraordinarily reluctant to impose itself upon others' bubbles.
It's basically both required for sanity in daily life and an answer to the
question of how many people in Tokyo are confronted with overpowering
loneliness when it is one of the most densely populated places on earth.

~~~
josai
Obviously Tokyo would be pretty low on anyone's list if they're seeking peace
and quiet.

However, I think Japan, and some european countries with good high speed rail,
can indeed offer viable "living close to nature" scenarios - you can be quite
far away from the big cities but still be within an hour by train. I have
actually been semi-seriously considering buying a place in Karuizawa - a
beautiful small town in Nagano prefecture, yet you can be at tokyo station in
45 minutes. There's also some lovely, quiet small towns along the akita
shinkansen line.

Best of both worlds! And internet is ubiquitous, fast and cheap.

~~~
rsync
You can find this right in the bay area.

West Marin in general, and the pt Reyes nat. seashore in particular.

I am currently 13 miles as the crow flies from the transamerica pyramid, and I
am looking at 360 view, to the horizon, with no trace of humankind. It's
silent.

~~~
darklajid
If I may: How does your social life work?

Is the train _that_ good to reach civilization and other people? How do you
reach the train if you don't see any trace of humankind (maybe my English-as-
a-second-language skills fail me, but I read that as 'the station is far
away')?

That sounds like you're absolutely dependent on your car, at least until you
reach a station? Is anything leaving from that station after - say - 21/22 in
the evening?

I'm seriously curious. This way of life is so completely different from what
I'd choose. I'd like to understand how that "works"..

~~~
personlurking
I can answer some of the logistics questions.

In Marin, for public transport, there's bus and ferry to San Francisco. For
Bart (regional metro service), one would have to go over the Richmond bridge
or the Golden Gate bridge (and far enough into SF that you'd be downtown
already). Getting to Bart stations via either bridge is really quick as long
as you have a car. Bus and ferry are quick enough. Also, you can bicycle to
the ferry or even across the Golden Gate from Marin.

------
valarauca1
I love silence. Its likely one of the best things ever. I find myself not only
enjoying it but needing it to cope with stress. A long week of work and
constantly dealing with people, bullshit, people interrupting my thought
process.

I find when I get home, I just want to be left alone, left in quiet. The hard
part is when I don't (two roommates + work being done on the house), like the
last few weeks. I get extremely stressed, to the point I get muscle cramps,
and lose a lot of sleep.

I've even tried exercising daily after work to help cope with stress, and it
doesn't help at all.

~~~
Duhck
I need the same thing -- quite unfortunate for my significant other.

I need a day of silence a week. I can deal with all the stresses of work /
life, provided I get a day to just sleep late, relax, clean, and not listen to
anyone else but my own inner thoughts.

------
mbubb
Silence is a luxury.

I live in the shadow of NYC and in any 10 min block of time will hear a:
helicopter/ airplane/ truck/ motorcycle. Garbage is picked up at 3am. There
are vague oceanic noises which I imagine are nearby building HVAC systems.
Bars and a W hotel add to the general ambient noise.

Spent 2 weeks camping in Iceland this summer and had moments of real silence.
Not a brief lull before the next noise but quiet with no expectation of
further noise.

~~~
personlurking
And regardless of it being a luxury (which I agree with), do you prefer NYC or
Iceland? Or both, but not strictly one or the other?

~~~
mbubb
I have never lived more than 30 miles from NYC (outside of 3 years in Seoul -
which is at least as active as NYC). It is hard to imagine living elsewhere.

------
orky56
I go crazy with floor boards creaking above me but I work best in a co-working
space. I prefer silence and coming home from work just increases my anxiety.
It's not only the ambient noise I need but also a healthy transition from
"productivity noise" to "useless noise". I enjoy reading these articles and
stories that justify my condition but it frustrates me that I can't do enough
to optimize my lifestyle sustainably for it.

In case anyone's interested, here's some research showing the benefits of a
small amount of ambient noise (7dB) helping creative cognition:
[http://www.jstor.org/stable/full/10.1086/665048](http://www.jstor.org/stable/full/10.1086/665048)

------
Zirro
I live in a large Swedish city, and as a side-effect of my apartment being
well-isolated from the cold during winter, it is also very silent. I do enjoy
having access to near complete silence, to the point that I have avoided
mechanical clocks and computer hardware that makes any significant noise. That
said, I often play music or open the doors to my balconies as I find that my
hearing wants to be stimulated while I work.

As it was brought up in another post, I am also an introvert and find myself
being overloaded with impressions occasionally. Being able to retreat to a
silent apartment is of great help with this.

------
ddorian43
I work inside a newsroom (10 journalist brawling) and live close to a 4lane
street + embassy that has a mega airconditioner.

That much noise isn't good for you ? At least at work I am most of the time
with headphones.

A friend visited Amsterdam, and when I asked about an impression, he said "The
air was clean. You could feel it".

Another friend visited Germany and said "It was quiet. Especially on weekend."

I'm looking forward to a day where I leave the country entirely.

And I'm 22.

~~~
personlurking
I think after having lived in several neighborhoods where noise was 21/7
(almost 24/7, that is, and where no one has consideration for their neighbor),
it may be that I simply have grown to appreciate distance from that kind of
living.

There's a lot of noise that I can live with, since I'm a pretty flexible
person, but I prefer the outside world to be a choice and having that line
between one thing and another (headphones are helpful). Equally, I like being
able to go out to social places but not specifically having to be social (like
cafes).

------
darklajid
Ignoring neighbors mowing their lawn/working on their houses and kids playing
outside:

I'm working from home and have two kids below the age of 2. What is this
silence thing you're talking about and should I try and look for it?

More seriously: While I do live somewhere 'silent' right now, that's more or
less a workaround, an arrangement with some facts of life. I prefer living in
a lively city (last place was one of Germany's biggest cities w/ around a
million people), in a central place.

I felt most comfortable in that very city, living as a single right next to
two well-known concert locations and with lots of nightlife around. Second
place: Living in Tel Aviv, which seems to compare itself with NYC as another
city that never sleeps.

No noise - impossible. I'd probably turn on a radio or start humming stuff
(and believe me, that's not a good idea..) if I'd ever be stuck in _real_
silence.

~~~
personlurking
Yes, I failed to mention I'm childless, and neighborly things like having
lawns to cut can't happen here where apt buildings are one after the other.
That said, some of my neighbors have kids, others love to talk in the
stairway, and my upstairs neighbor drops small items on his floor frequently
and at very odd hours. I'm pretty hard to annoy so it doesn't bother me too
much (if it were constant, that's another thing).

The part about the central-living in the German city, I would guess that if
you like relative silence, you get the same pleasure out of being near lively
places (as long as you can return to a calm enough place after).

~~~
darklajid
Yeah, sure. Your last statement is fine, but .. it's a matter of preference.
The return could be 'So, just leave the noisy/lively city if you seek
silence', no?

You pick your home based on your preferences. I wouldn't normally live in this
mostly silent place, because leaving home and traveling to the more lively (or
.. noisy) places eats motivation and energy, which means that more often than
not I don't do it anymore.

I'd prefer having all of that right outside of my door, leaving for quiet
places instead - when necessary/appropriate.

------
notduncansmith
I'm very appreciative of the level of silence I can enjoy on a regular basis.
I recently moved into a semi-private office at work (one other guy working
with me, but he's pretty quiet), and when I get home my wife goes to school -
I have a few hours of noise while I hang out with my toddler, then he goes to
bed and it's back to quiet until she gets home (and subsequently goes to bed).

I'm also somewhat introverted and find excessive noise (for a fairly low value
of excessive) pretty overwhelming/exhausting. My brain is constantly working
on some challenge I'm facing, usually from multiple angles; trying to marshal
all those ideas into a single, coherent train of thought is a mental exercise.
Trying to do that with some inane television show in the background is a non-
starter.

------
s_dev
I definitely enjoy some quiet time now and again - however I'm working from
home at the moment and do enjoy the sounds of kids playing outside, they're
laughing and shouting at each other. I can hear the odd airplane and
helicopter as well. The volume is determined greatly by whether the windows
are open or not but I tend to leave them open as the fresh air seems to make
the apartment more sanitary.

At night sometimes there are parties and loud music is played - it doesn't
bother me as I don't find it that difficult to sleep. Not really a huge amount
of traffic in the apartment complex I live in as it's quite far down the
docklands in Dublin, Ireland. I reckon when I'm older (50+) I might be less
attracted to the hustle and bustle of city living.

~~~
personlurking
I also work from home and I think that's why I'm not 100% crazy about all
silence, all the time. As mentioned in one of my comments here, I get a lot of
my noise needs while doing things in public that require minimal social
interaction. And when I want a "normal" experience, I go out with someone from
my small group of friends.

I agree with the age thing. You know how a young person can be an "old soul"?
I'm probably not that but I do think I may have been born an old person. Being
young-ish, I'm attracted to city-life exactly because it gives me that choice,
between being at home in relative quiet and seeing lots of people out and
about.

------
ajcarpy2005
The sound of a running refrigerator is one of those sounds found in most homes
and can be a source of constant distraction, whether this distraction takes
place below conscious recognition or not.

I feel that silence is especially beneficial for (and sought out by) people
who have a lot of divergent ideas or thoughts which they 'need to' converge
and solidify into a more emergent and connected whole. Artistic people would
be one simple example but also anyone who has done a great deal of
autodidactic study and then wants to turn that into a more refined versions of
internalized information...

EDIT: There are of course ways to dampen the sounds in a home or other
building, namely, sound-absorbing foam which can be placed on walls or
insulation inside of the walls.

~~~
ulisesrmzroche
If it's not conscious, it isn't a distraction. Also, not all artists work in
quiet rooms.

For example, Basquiat had the news on, music, movies, etc while painting and
Stephen gave up on looking for a quiet room and so wrote Carrie with a desk in
the living room and two small children to help take care of.

There is no connection between thought and silence except in folklore, really.

~~~
ajcarpy2005
As for your point about noises which do not generate a conscious thought...are
you saying that an unconscious thought cannot be a 'distraction' in the sense
that it is wasting precious resources in the mind?

------
stygiansonic
I thought my workplace and home were fairly silent, at least when I wanted
them to be. (At home, I usually had something going on in the background, such
as music, but if I found it bothersome, I could always turn it off)

This summer, I took a trip out to the Rockies and went on a few hiking trips.
Some of the trails were pretty much empty of human traffic during the later
hours. The vastness of nature, coupled with the trees and lack of wind that
day made for a deafening silence similar to an anechoic chamber. It was truly
stunning.

------
jamespitts
A major form of "silence infrastructure" is some form of nature, close at hand
to where you're living and working. This does not have to be wild, raw nature,
just something you can walk through and not have your attention frazzled
constantly by signals and sounds you might react to.

Companies and learning institutions having tree-lined office parks or choosing
to be located near public parks recognize this. And on a personal level, we
all should too.

------
dsirijus
I don't really care if it's silent or not, but I find it important that it's
controlled by me as much as possible. Even to the point of running a rain
noise simulator under some music album.

As far as actual volume is concerned, I play music all day long, unless I'm
extremely hung over and need to rest. In hands of a skilled operator, music is
basically a mood control board. I can't imagine why would someone want to live
without that power.

------
hyp0
White noise + earplugs

Question: when it actually is very quiet (like 3am), does anyone else hear a
low-pitched hum? It's so low and quiet, it's more like a pressure than a
sound. And if there's any sound at all (e.g. even if I'm moving around), I
can't hear it.

I'd thought it was traffic or road construction etc, but I also heard it in a
forest, about 10km from the nearest main road... But it doesn't seem to be
internal, as it's not synchronized with my pulse or breath.

 _EDIT_ : I'm in Melbourne, Australia. I first noticed it when living by the
bay near the international shipping dock, and it seemed to be coming from
there. But I've just moved about 20km further along the bay, and it's just as
loud. And also heard it about 100km inland (in the bush). Though this was near
major high-tension powerlines (I think, supplying melbourne with coal-
electricity from Morwell). Maybe that was it.

~~~
andrewtbham
Where do you live? obviously not in the US since you used the word kilometers.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum)

~~~
hyp0
Melbourne, Australia (I added more details above). Thanks, that sounds like it
exactly! So, I'm not going crazy (or, at least, not alone in it).

I'd guess it's related to industrialization in some way, as low frequency
sounds can carry long distances, and are difficult to directionalize.

------
a3n
I prefer almost-silence, very low levels of undemanding noise and very little
human noise. My favorite environments (which I don't currently have) include
faint and distant traffic if any, an open window with a light leave-rustling
breeze and polite birds.

------
aikah
I live in a school ,so I get sharp voices of pupils yelling in the
schoolyard(300+ kids) almost all day(I live in the second floor). I got used
to it.

But friends staying at my place often ask me how I can bear that noise. I
guess i developped some kind of noise filter.

~~~
personlurking
Not exactly the same but this sort of filtering happens to me here in Lisbon.
I have developed a Portuguese comprehension 'switch' that I can activate with
relative ease. Perhaps learning the language later in life helps me with
switching it on and off. On the flip side, it has heightened my listening
ability in English, to where I pay extra attention when I hear English (my
native language).

------
jordsmi
I need everyone else to be silent. I can make all the noise I want, play music
loud etc, and I can still focus fine on whatever I am working on.

The second I hear other noises outside, in another room, etc I start to lose
focus and get annoyed.

------
cafard
At one job, I caused some annoyance by implicitly following a rule: if you
don't turn off the radio when you leave the room, we weren't listening to it;
ergo, I may turn it off. My wife will turn a radio on, and leave the room for
varying periods. I do not, usually, turn the radio off in those cases.

I find that I don't count ambient but indistinguishable sounds as noise: a kid
yelling on the next block may be audible, but doesn't really register. Traffic
two blocks away, without sirens, doesn't particularly.

------
witty_username
I like silence somewhat, but absolute silence actually is a distraction for
me—it feels odd.

~~~
personlurking
Absolute silence, as in not even white noise? I used to live in Brazil where
families often leave the TV on in the other room just in order to have noise.
My version of that is to have the fan on in the summer, maybe some
instrumental music playing lowly anytime, or leaving the back door open to
where I can hear the birds.

------
iterationx
I would love it if some enterprising person ranked restaurants by a quietness
rating.

------
holri
I prefer 4′33″ by John Cage as background music.

~~~
rsync
I sometimes feel like that's the only piano piece I've truly mastered...

------
ninavizz
Yep.

------
comrade1
Here in Switzerland it's usually pretty quiet, but Sunday is exceptional. No
work is allowed - no cutting your grass, no washing your car, etc. The museums
are open, and it's also a hiking day (Saturday too).

~~~
personlurking
That, I didn't know. I like that there's a hiking day.

In Brazil, on holidays (and sometimes Sundays), cities tend to turn into ghost
towns so it's a similar end result.

~~~
darklajid
Tongue-in-cheek, but Bern(e) (not-really-but-close-to-the-concept the capital
of CH) is a ghost town most nights.

More or less lived there for (accumulated, on-site for projects, stayed all
week and a good number of weekends) 1.5-2 years. Compared to other cities in
CH or places in DE the thing goes dark early and completely.

(No bashing intended. It's an really beautiful city if you're looking at the
architecture, I love what nature has to offer all around, love the Aare/river
in the center of the thing and they have decent local beer.. It's just
absolutely dead at night in my opinion. Silence, to get back on topic, is easy
to find)

