Comment by Bethany:

I always long for silence and have moved out to the country to get a little more of it! There are still tractors and combines a few distant dogs barking, but I don’t mind it nearly so much as the city noises!

In contrast, we lived overseas for a few years in a country where the culture insisted that the louder the activity the more fun. So every store in the mall was trying to blast the others out of the water. And when your neighbors had a party, it had to be cranked. Frequently, we would go out to dinner and not be able to hear the conversation at our own table because the music was too loud to even hear yourself think. It was not my definition of fun! Talk about culture shock! It is so good to be home. It is still noisy, but nothing in comparison.

Comment by J.D:

I always pray for silence and my surroundings. Gosh much needed peace and quiet. Conversations and people yelling, loud tv’s to the maximum. People turning it up louder and louder. Hopefully in another century we can also not have worry about headphones and just listen to ourselves through silence. Hope it is soon!

Comment by Jan Tetrault:

The greatest thing about a power outage is the quiet.

Comment by Shoshana:

Something I have always found interesting about the 18th Century… I live near Niagara Falls. In the 18th century, you could hear the falls from Fort Niagara which is about 20 miles from the fort. The earth was that quiet then. I have been to the fort many times and I can almost feel the falls, I wish I could hear them.

Comment by Nick:

This is one of my biggest pet peeves. The absolute cacophony of sound that surrounds us everywhere we go.

Our fridge and freezer stay in a room away from the rest of the house, I can’t stand to listen to them. We don’t own a TV, my wife listens to the radio occasionally but usually the only time we have anything “playing” it is a preaching tape in our little tape player.

I can’t hardly stand to go to most stores anymore. Which makes the fact that I currently work at a national chain retail drugstore very difficult.

The manager at the store I work at plays the music so loud that I literally often cannot understand what the customers right in front of me are saying!

I asked him one day if we could turn the music down. His answer was, “When the volume is a little too loud, people buy more cards.” All I could do was stand there open-mouthed.

Comment by Caroline:

I have noticed in my own home that when we turn off the tv, radio and other distraction everyone seems to mellow out.

Comment by Rose:

This really hit home for me. I absolutely crave peace and quiet. I worked for 9 years at a nuke plant. everything beep, buzzed, honked or made some other awful noise. I wore earplugs most of the time, but I really think the noise did something to my nervous system. I even have a hard time listening to music, which I have always loved, for very long at a time now. When the heat or air come on in the house it bothers me. When I am outside in my yard far away from artificial sound I am content. Otherwise I feel bothered and irritated in a way I cannot explain.

Comment by Wendy (The Local Cook):

sometimes I get to see a similar effect when nationals from developing countries come to visit our offices in the U.S. They don’t comment on the noise so much as the fact that there are so many choices of things to buy, eat (although it makes them sick), and how everyone takes cars even very short distances.

Comment by Dave B:

I had a profound experience in Canyonlands National Park. I was camping and the silence was so perfect and absolute, that I still remember that, more so, than the beautiful vistas.

Comment by goldfish:

I find people talking into their cell phones everywhere I go disconcerting. I don’t know why this bothers me so much.

Comment by finallygettingtoeven.com:

Noise did not used to bother me in my younger years, in fact i would search it out, radio on way too loud, Tv blaring in the background. Now i prefer peace & quiet, so much so that some mornings i want to yell out to the birds chirping happily, “Hey! quiet down out there for awhile” of course, they would never listen…

Comment by Anne B:

People who come inside our house usually comment on how quiet it is, probably because we don’t leave the TV or radio on for “background noise.” The lady who feeds our cats when we’re away always leaves our kitchen radio on during the day so the cats will hear the voices and be less lonely; little does she know how little noise they hear when we’re home! I’m sure she’d turn on the TV for them if we had one.

Comment by N R:

I would love to move to a quieter place – can totally relate to the posts here on the need for quiet. Hope to be able to downsize and move soon!

Comment by Arthur3030:

I sometimes half-joke that the loudspeaker was the worst invention of the 20th century (actually 1890s, maybe). I have a perfectly good mind, and it becomes more and more difficult to use it as I get pounded by loud music everywhere I go. Awful.
One small recent improvement is the popularity of smart phones over boom boxes. I’m still surrounded by driving beats all day, but even the loudest on-speaker phone is quieter than boom boxes.

Comment by Linda:

Though I am not a loner, I am very comfortable with silence and actually NEED times of solitude and quiet to restore and refresh my soul. Several times a year I go off alone on retreat to spend time alone with God and enjoy the beauty of nature. I am grateful for this gift since I believe most people are uncomfortable with silence.

Comment by Desert Island Bookworm:

I worked for years at independent bookstore by the beach in a building built in early 1900′s, with cash till rather than noisy cash register–definitely no computers.

Elderly owners allowed us to leave phone off the hook if it rang too much! Employees also had choice of whether to play music–and how loudly–from selection of tapes for sale, mostly classical or New Age instrumentals. Great calm, relaxing atmosphere for customers browsing.

Large windows let in natural light, i.e. no fluorescent light fixtures buzzing & flickering. Did you know that some people on Autism/Asperger’s Syndrome spectrum are so sensitive to fluorescent lighting that it can seem to flash as much as a strobe light disco ball to someone else that is more “Neurotypical”?

BTW, novel “Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time” which has autistic protagonist, alerted me to how sensory overload is factor in triggering an autistic person’s shutting down from outside world & meltdown reactions.

When I worked for a chain bookstore (which is no longer in business), in order to take a breather and “decompress” from store noises, I’d take my breaks outdoors in place without people (i.e. no music, talking, or intrusive loud sounds such as ringing phones, cash registers, piped in rock music–tho I could dial down level of loudness).

Now I realize it was relatively quiet, compared to another chain store (only new bookstore in area where I now live). Loud music and frequent announcements over loud speaker make it impossible for me to take in what I’m trying to read when browsing thru books, to help me decide if it interests me enough to want to read whole book.

Maybe they want people to come in, grab book off best seller display and go out as quickly as possible (another customer-unfriendly touch is lack of seating except in cafe–which is sooo noisy I don’t see how any one can enjoy relaxing with a beverage–unless they are deaf?

That store has lost me as a customer to public libraries–tho those aren’t as quiet as they used to be. I dream of one dating from early 1900′s, quiet & subtly lit, with card file before computers, and windows opening onto shushing ocean waves below. It’s since been repurposed into something else….