I’m Thinking. Please. Be Quiet.

It&#x27;s so true. I can do routine work with noise, but not the kind that requires insight.<p>The sad thing is that noise is yet another example of the phenomenon of &quot;the tragedy of the commons.&quot; Which means things tend to get noisier and noisier. In fact, what has surprised me most about living in Palo Alto is how noisy it is. You&#x27;d think living in the suburbs would at least be quiet. It is on weekends. But the problem with this suburb is that people are too rich: they all have their gardens maintained by gardening services, who use among other things gas-powered leaf blowers and hedge trimmers.<p>The leaf blowers in particular are unbelievably loud. You can hear a gas-powered leaf blower 3 blocks away. Which means during the day you can almost always hear one. (The city of Palo Alto has outlawed gas powered leaf blowers, but the gardening services all pretend not to know.)

It&#x27;s an opinion piece, so it&#x27;s sort of anecdotal and hazy by nature, I guess (ymmv). I&#x27;m not going to complain too viscerally about it.<p>The problem I have, though, is that the entire piece basically says &quot;noise kills productivity&quot; but the only linked research is saying that &quot;exposure to aircraft noise increases morning saliva cortisol levels in women, which could be of relevance for noise-related cardiovascular effects.&quot; [0]<p>So I basically have an article saying &quot;noise is bad for productivity and concentration&quot; and a research article saying &quot;loud noise at night might raise stress levels in women, even if it doesn&#x27;t wake them up.&quot;<p>To me, the former is meaningless. I wouldn&#x27;t even start to make an argument about it based on the provided material without bringing other sources to bat. It would just be anecdote v anecdote. However, I find the latter interesting, and makes me want to do a little more reading on that particular subject. I happen to be male, but the idea that extra noise might inherently increase levels of a stress hormone in the human body is just as interesting and important to me as whether or not I&#x27;m more or less productive in a quiet room.<p>tl;dr = The article content is fluffy, but the linked research is kind of interesting (albeit saying something almost totally unrelated)<p>[0] <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2801169/#__ffn_sectitle" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pmc&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC2801169&#x2F;#__ffn_s...</a>

IIRC Peopleware pointed out a study where they compared two groups of programmers, those working in a quiet environment and those working with music. Given identical assignments, both groups completed it in roughly the same (median) amount of time. However, the assignment was such that there was a &quot;shortcut&quot;, i.e. if you thought hard enough about the requirements a much easier solution was possible. Only the programmers in the quiet group got this shortcut. Thought this was interesting.

So I can&#x27;t find an online reference to this anywhere, but years ago I read a relevant anecdote about (I&#x27;m pretty sure) Isaac Asimov.<p>He used to go into the most noisy environments he could find to write; places like a noisy restaurant or cafe. He found that this forced him to focus in a way that a quiet environment did not. For example, in a quiet environment, you occasionally still hear sounds, but it&#x27;s rare enough that you don&#x27;t have to keep your focus actively engaged. So when the sounds inevitably do happen, they distract.<p>Note that I&#x27;m not suggesting that this would work for most people. I&#x27;ve tried it, and maybe it&#x27;s worked for me once or twice. It&#x27;s an interesting way to try to get of writer&#x27;s block, if nothing else.

I&#x27;ll bite. From my biased viewpoint, based on who complains most, people prefer the quiet more as they get older. Kids don&#x27;t seem to care, middle aged prefer some separation, and my elders can be derailed by a greeting. I&#x27;ve always assumed it was the skill to tune out, but perhaps theirs are weightier thoughts.<p>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&#x27;m assuming sight to be an even higher bandwidth signal than hearing, but perhaps it lacks the same interrupts?)<p>While complete silence is certainly soothing, it won&#x27;t spin my mind up either. There&#x27;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&#x27;s where I think or decompress usually.<p>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.<p>Perhaps there&#x27;s some way to run a controlled experiment to figure out if it&#x27;s the quality of the noise that does it?

I tell every developer buddy I have that they should get a pair of Fuck Off Headphones [0]. They need to be big enough that people can&#x27;t try to say, &quot;Oh, I didn&#x27;t see you had headphones on&quot;.<p>I work from home now, and they work just as well for keeping my family at bay as they did for chatty coworkers when I had to be in an office.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wireless-Gaming-Headset-Surround/dp/B003VANOFY" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Logitech-Wireless-Gaming-Headset-Surro...</a>

I&#x27;m extremely sensitive to sound, and I&#x27;ve been hoping that the the powers that be will eventually come to the realization that open seating plans are highly suboptimal (<a href="http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/08/open-office-layout" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.infoq.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;2011&#x2F;08&#x2F;open-office-layout</a>, for example).<p>I&#x27;ve used a decibel meter on occasion and have observed that my current office sometimes averages 75-80 db. Which, were I in a coffee shop, I could tolerate for some reason[1] much better than at the office.<p>In any event, I&#x27;m now highly dependent on noise canceling headphones (these I highly recommend: <a href="http://www.bose.com/controller?url=/shop_online/headphones/noise_cancelling_headphones/quietcomfort_3/index.jsp" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bose.com&#x2F;controller?url=&#x2F;shop_online&#x2F;headphones&#x2F;n...</a>)<p>[1] My guesses are a) local conversations at work capture my attention in ways that anonymous ones at a coffee shop don&#x27;t, b) coffee shops play music and tend to have other noise that create a generalized din that actually works a bit like white noise.

The flip side of noise, distraction and interruption is people. I still find it hard to get this part of my working life just right.<p>On the one hand, to do really thoughtful work does require quiet and isolation, something that&#x27;s difficult to get in open-plan spaces. On the other hand, avoiding garden paths and finding better ideas also requires the kind of impromptu chatting that happens with others around. Plus, company is nice.<p>I feel like my ideal would be an office with two sections, the &quot;library&quot; and the &quot;coffee shop&quot;. The library part is dead quiet, by design and by convention, somewhere always available when you need to focus. When your work is more mundane, you need a break or you feel like company, you can emerge and work around others in the more traditional open plan environment (i.e. the coffee shop).<p>It doesn&#x27;t seem that many workplaces are able to provide both environments well. Most favour just the latter.

I have a problem with spoken words, not &#x27;noise&#x27;.<p>I&#x27;m quickly removed from &#x27;The Zone&#x27; when my brain starts to unconsciously process speech. Indistinct chatter, environmental noise, loud instrumental music, etc aren&#x27;t bothersome. In fact my best sessions occur in bars, on public transit, or outside.

Interesting, but plenty of examples of just the opposite.<p>&quot;Von Neumann ... received complaints for regularly playing extremely loud German marching music on his gramophone, which distracted those in neighbouring offices, including Einstein, from their work. Von Neumann did some of his best work blazingly fast in noisy, chaotic environments, and once admonished his wife for preparing a quiet study for him to work in. He never used it, preferring the couple&#x27;s living room with its TV playing loudly.&quot;<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;John_von_Neumann</a>

Loneliness is killing us, and now noise? What fragile creatures we are, how unfit and utterly unprepared for this world!<p>While Schopenhauer makes a great anecdote, I think the reality is some people think better with silence, and others think better with background noise. I think recorded music in particular has ushered in an age where productive thinking can even be enhanced through &quot;noise&quot; rather than diminished.<p>&quot;Every time a siren shrieks on the street, our conscious minds might ignore it, but other brain regions behave as if that siren were a predator barreling straight for us. Given how many sirens city dwellers are subject to over the course of an average day, and the attention-fracturing tension induced by loud sounds of every sort, it’s easy to see how sensitivity to noise, once an early warning system for approaching threats, has become a threat in itself.&quot;<p>I see this come up over and over in these types of articles, on adrenal response to stimulus, like noise or driving or even conflict in the workplace. I think this is an extremely primitive way of thinking about the human brain. Yes, hearing evolved to be sensitive due to natural selection. Over-reacting to non-threatening stimulus? Hardly. The brain is not static. We are, in fact, highly adaptable to our environment. And I don&#x27;t see any evidence suggesting a modern din is snuffing out our intellect.

I personally find that I am much more distracted by people who are trying to get my attention than I am by background noise. This article reminds of an anecdote about Poincare that can be found on page 533 of the excellent book &quot;Men of Mathematics&quot;[1]<p>&quot;...when a distinguished mathematician had come all the way from Finland to Paris to confer with Poincare on scientific matters, Poincare did not leave his study to greet his called when the maid notified him, but continued to pace back and forth - as was his custom when mathematizing - for three solid hours. All this time the diffident caller sat quietly in the adjoining room, barred from the master only by flimsy portieres. At last the drapes parted and Poincare&#x27;s buffalo head was thrust for an instant into the room. &quot;Vois me derangez beaucoup&quot; (You are disturbing me greatly) the head exploded, and disappeared. The caller departed without an interview...&quot;<p>[1]<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=BLFL3coT5i4C&amp;q=533#v=snippet&amp;q=533&amp;f=false" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;books.google.com&#x2F;books?id=BLFL3coT5i4C&amp;q=533#v=snippe...</a>

&gt;...people who are not philosophers lose whatever ideas their brains can carry in consequence of brutish jolts of sound.<p>This makes me wonder if the brutish jolts of sound being emitted from the many casinos throughout the world are accomplishing the same task (and emptying people&#x27;s wallets more easily?)<p>&quot;I think I should be goi.. &gt;<i>BINGK!</i>&lt; ...go win my money back!&quot;<p>I can&#x27;t agree with this article more, however. I should probably read it again so I can better explain myself when asking that somebody not address me while I&#x27;m working.<p>I sometimes listen to white noise in my headphones if surrounded by incessant noise.

Relevant (and recent) tweet from John Carmack: &quot;I wonder how much of the annoying sound of leaf blowers is fundamental to the high velocity airstream,and how much could be engineered away.&quot; <a href="https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/369487626035675136" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;ID_AA_Carmack&#x2F;status&#x2F;369487626035675136</a>

If you&#x27;re the sort of person who thrives in a quiet atmosphere or is really sensitive to sound, I can&#x27;t recommend Bose QC-15 noise canceling headphones enough. They&#x27;ve totally transformed my life and I still lament for the days of productivity I lost while living in ignorance of their existence.<p>Even when I&#x27;m not listening to music, they take the edge off of the all the sound and noise around me so that even conversations happening within earshot aren&#x27;t distracting, even though I could tune in and understand what people are saying if I wanted to. It&#x27;s pretty amazing.

It&#x27;d be interesting to plot Distraction vs. Noise Level, because while it&#x27;s clear that Zero Noise maps nicely to Zero Distraction, I&#x27;ve noticed that Near Constant Noise also maps to Zero Distraction.<p>I used to live on Plaza del Castillo in Pamplona, backing on to one of the main bar streets in town. Friday and Saturday nights were pretty loud, even after closing time, with random whooping groups wandering past at intervals until nearly daylight. We had a windowless room in the center of the apartment we&#x27;d dubbed &quot;The Bombshelter&quot; to sleep in on nights like this.<p>But during San Fermin, things would kick up a few orders of magnitude. The party would crank up on a Sunday and go non-stop for 8 solid days. There were no more random groups to be identified, just a constant insane roar. I recall seeing three marching bands collide in the midst of a swarm of thousands of people directly under our bedroom balcony, at 3 in the morning on a Wednesday. They were playing but you couldn&#x27;t really hear them from 20 feet up from all the other noise.<p>You&#x27;d think that week would be impossible, but it wasn&#x27;t. Quite the opposite. I slept like a baby (even on the nights when I hadn&#x27;t spent any time down among those crowds yelling and spilling wine). The noise was constant and even. No spikes could penetrate it, so the mind could relax and sleep soundly. It was actually kind of nice.<p>I notice the same thing on planes, and in loud, crowded coffee shops. There are lots of people talking, but little risk of anybody talking to <i>me</i>, so it&#x27;s all just background noise. No spikes, so my brain can filter it out. I&#x27;ve done some of my best work in those places.<p>Strange.

This is massively important to me, and it&#x27;s why I live and am extremely productive in the middle of nowhere.<p>Also, since moving from an environment with constant noise pollution, my high blood pressure has gone down to the point that the only reason I&#x27;m taking the medication anymore is it would make my MD sibling very unhappy if I went off them. I suspect that chopping wood and carrying water also helped with that, but when I learned of the noise to BP link, it was an aha moment.<p>Anyway, I&#x27;m curious about how different countries seem to have different set levels for acceptable noise. In Honduras, noone seemed to think anything of trucks driving around with loudspeakers blaring various messages. That seems slightly less acceptable in America, but there is still enormous tolerance for more subtle noise pollution here. Are there other countries that are less tolerant?

I see a lot of developers using earphones and listening to music while doing their stuff. As someone that prefers relative quiet I have always wondered if this makes them more, or less productive.<p>This article would tend to indicate the latter but of course there is a big difference (generally) between music and noise.

Noise is a big deal for some people. It&#x27;s one of the reasons why I dropped out of Columbia a few years ago. Not something I regret, but I can&#x27;t help but wonder if quiet, still places are a cornerstone of the most innovative societies. A cornerstone of successful lives. Not quiet all the time. Not faccistic silence. Gentle, comfortable, quiet places to come to for a few hours a day to help cultivate peace in the mind. For if we see everything through a filter, as many of us claim, I think noise, disturbance disrupts the milieu our through which our senses travel.

1) Sound isn&#x27;t necessarily distracting. Sometimes it could be helpful. Focus@Will (<a href="https://www.focusatwill.com/science/science-primer/" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.focusatwill.com&#x2F;science&#x2F;science-primer&#x2F;</a>) is based on this.<p>2) You can usually find quiet if you want to rather easily.<p>3) If you&#x27;re going to argue that society (or parts of society) should be more quiet, you have to be specific about what parts, and about why restricting sound outweighs the costs. The costs of restricting sound weren&#x27;t addressed at all.

If &quot;paleo&quot; concepts apply to food, why not thinking?<p>Its very interesting that we&#x27;ve existed as thinking animals for a lot longer than &quot;office jobs&quot; have existed.<p>From an evolutionary perspective, our best thinking was almost certainly done in near perfect silence or at most calm animal noises. Hmm, we&#x27;re tracking that yummy large mammal and I&#x27;m hungry, whats the next move? So I hear my neighbor chipping away quietly as I think up the best way to whack this rock to make it a better arrowhead. How do I cut this tree down so it doesn&#x27;t land on my head? So I&#x27;m staring at these wheat seeds, thinking about what would happen if I buried them in the dirt and came back later. So looking at the position of the sun &#x2F; moon &#x2F; stars, is this the time to plant the wheat seeds?<p>I don&#x27;t see an evolutionary example of hard successful thinking in an intentionally noisy distracting environment. In fact if its noisy its because the lion is roaring at us trying to eat us, so deep thinking is probably not advised compared to fight or flight. I guess fight or flight style coding exists at places swirling the drain. Finish this report or we&#x27;re all on the unemployment line next week. Um, OK, crank up the death metal on the speakers and see ya in twelve hours with a finished product ...<p>From an evolutionary standpoint we should be able to do our best, deepest thinking&#x2F;coding on a bench at the zoo by the &quot;food&quot; animals, or perhaps sitting in a cow pasture. In (rare) good weather, I&#x27;ve had decent results with a laptop sitting in a covered (dark-ish) park rain shelter.

I see lots of strategies for dealing with noise, so here is one of mine. I got a pair of one of those industrial ear protectors, the kind that carpenters or construction workers wear. Then I use simple in-ear buds and listen to ambient music or jazz. Anything without vocals.<p>I use this setup pretty much anywhere I am around annoying sounds and it&#x27;s pricelessly quiet. I&#x27;ve tried numerous noise cancellation BS headphones and none of them can come close. On airplanes it&#x27;s like entering a warm cocoon of sound that allows me to forget I&#x27;m there. I can listen to an airplane movie soundtrack at the lowest possible volume and hear nothing else. The only problem is when the captain pipes up and blasts me away with some stupid announcement. So I keep my hand near the socket to remove the plug and when I hear the click of the captain&#x27;s mike I immediately unplug.<p>Forget about these overpriced over engineered noise cancellation whatever devices. My low tech solution is way better for concentration and it costs only around $50-$70. I&#x27;ve actually had people ask me what kind of noise cancellation headphones I&#x27;m using when wearing my ear-muffs. I even had a guy in a datacenter ask me if they were USB enabled ;)

Being sensitive to useless noise, I want to make love to this article.<p>But most people I know seem uncomfortable with silence, and sleep through any noise. There are exceptions, but that&#x27;s what they are, exceptions (in my anecdotal experience). If the science mentioned in the article is right, does it mean most people I know are what: either out of touch with themselves, or trying to cope with the fear of the noise by burying it under a stream of constant sound?

I wear earplugs. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0033YLEGO?ie=UTF8&amp;ref_=pd_sbs_sg_2" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;gp&#x2F;product&#x2F;B0033YLEGO?ie=UTF8&amp;ref_=pd_...</a><p>At work they&#x27;re just enough for me to be able to concentrate while still allowing people to get my attention without raising their voice. At which time I take them out and repeat what I heard of their question.

They have their issues, but quality ear plugs can be a decent substitute for a quiet working (or sleeping) environment. The key is to find a variety that is comfortable and works well for your ears. I started by ordering a variety pack of 35 different types: <a href="http://www.earplugstore.com/unfoamtrialp1.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.earplugstore.com&#x2F;unfoamtrialp1.html</a><p>From these I ordered a large box of the two that I liked best:<p>3M E-A-Rsoft FX: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/3M-E-A-Rsoft-Uncorded-Conservation-312-1261/dp/B008MCUGAC" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;3M-E-A-Rsoft-Uncorded-Conservation-312...</a><p>Howard Leight Max Lite: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Howard-Leight-LPF-1-Uncorded-Earplugs/dp/B000RMFGGY" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Howard-Leight-LPF-1-Uncorded-Earplugs&#x2F;...</a><p>The (green) MaxLite are the most comfortable I found and quite effective, and the (yellow) SoftFX are quite comfortable and extremely good at blocking noise. I mostly use the MaxLite for sleeping, and the SoftFX when I want something in the daytime. Since each pair can be reused at least a half-dozen times before they become too soft and start losing their effectiveness, I should be set for another 5 years or so.<p>If you&#x27;ve tried ear plugs before and felt that they weren&#x27;t effective enough, it&#x27;s possible that you weren&#x27;t wearing them correctly. They need to be inserted quite deeply into the ear canal, and need to be rolled tightly before insertion to make this possible. And then there is the slightly-embarrassing-but-essential &quot;pinna pull&quot;: <a href="http://www.e-a-r.com/pdf/hearingcons/tipstools.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.e-a-r.com&#x2F;pdf&#x2F;hearingcons&#x2F;tipstools.pdf</a>

I can just speak from experience comparing different open offices and working at home. The primary office I work at is all open, however the acoustics are horrible and the place is extremely noisy. Days I am in the office are mostly relegated to meetings with other team members and a marginal amount of coding. Putting in headphones and working at a desk on days we are supposed to be mingling, working with one another, etc is no better than working at home. That said, two other regional offices which I have spent time in that were also open, while not meeting with direct team members, I was more productive without headphones -- things were generally quiet.<p>When I work at home, I am actually more productive coding than I am in the office due to having more control over both noise and distractions.<p>I can&#x27;t speak to research, I just know I prefer environments that are either quiet or the noise is specifically relevant to myself and colleagues over hearing the ramblings of disparate teams in the background.

This used to be a problem when I started working at a company in 2009. Lots of office noises and conversations going on, I couldn&#x27;t focus. Pretty sure I have an oversensitivity to noise too, as mentioned in this article.<p>The solution for me was buying a (not cheap) pair of Bose QC15 noise-canceling headphones. One of the best decisions I&#x27;ve ever made.

Ah, Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer - Über Lärm und Geräusch <a href="http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Ueber_Lerm_und_Ger%C3%A4usch" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;de.wikisource.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Ueber_Lerm_und_Ger%C3%A4usch</a><p>Interestingly enough his main ideas were influenced by Hinduism, but there was little known about Buddhism around 1818 in Europe. He later acknowledged that his philosophy was essentially buddhistic: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer#Buddhism" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Arthur_Schopenhauer#Buddhism</a><p>John Cage ventured into this arena in a different way. He is famous for his silent piece 4&#x27;33. John Cage on silence and sounds: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHnL7aS64Y" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=pcHnL7aS64Y</a>

I coded from essentially an open warehouse for several years with shop noise, sewing machines, various noise generating machines, packing tape noise and people. Talking on the phone was difficult, let alone CODING. I honestly feel like I might have some noise sensitivity complex from working in that environment for so long. Tried not to complain, but my noise cancelling headphones were the only thing that allowed me to be productive. I eventually got an office and that helped considerably. I don&#x27;t work for that company anymore.<p>I work from home now and it is the opposite spectrum, I get total piece and quiet, I love it. I can&#x27;t say enough about a good pair of over the ear noise cancelling headphones though if you find yourself sensitive to noise.

All the more reason why the &quot;standard layout&quot; of cubicle farms in modern offices really, really sucks for people whose jobs involve continuous, unmolested concentration. Sure, there are benefits to being in close proximity and to collaborating. But sometimes people just need to focus.<p>While it&#x27;s not exactly cost effective or feasible to give every programmer, designer, writer, etc., a private office, it <i>should</i> be a priority to have designated quiet spaces. Something as simple as a conference room that you turn into a quiet zone, almost like a small library.

On a related topic: If you&#x27;re in the Denver area this week, feel free to drop in on a Free Public Workshop on Noise in Communities and Natural areas: <a href="http://www.naturalquietworkshop2013.org/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.naturalquietworkshop2013.org&#x2F;</a> which is being held in conjuction with Noise-Con (an annual conference for noise control engineers). The workshop is mostly geared toward noise in public parks, but it covers a lot of the same concerns in the NYT piece.

I wonder if that is what drives some typical programmer behavior, like coding at night (less noise), or super-star freelancers moving to rural cities.<p>Currently (office for me and the CEO in a busy area of a 30million people metro region) I am nowhere productive as I was when I lived in a rural area and coded at night. (but I am more productive than when I worked into a open layout office with 40 programmers...)

While quiet time is good for concentration, it totally discourages collaboration. I end up over-analyzing things and procrastinate due to the fear of breaking the silence and collaborating. In my eyes team productivity actually drops in quiet environments. And all lone wolfs head off in their own direction. In short, a recipe for disaster.

I really like background noise when I work, as long as it&#x27;s nothing that I can focus on.<p>Just the wind blowing, birds making noises outside, or the clinking and chatter at a cafe. I find that I work about 50% faster in those environments.<p>When there&#x27;s dead silence or music I am much slower and more easily distracted. Also far less creative for some reason.

It is funny because when I was studying a language in college, one professor came into one of my freshmen year courses, and administered a test without noise, and then varying levels of background noise. This obvious experiment led me to believe, given my annoyance and inability to focus, that this must hold true.

Two words: white noise.<p>My favourite is the linux SoX (Sound eXchange). <i>sudo apt-get install sox</i> with this command (which varies the sound, rain-like):<p><pre><code> play -t sl -r48000 -c2 - synth -1 pinknoise tremolo .1 40 &lt; &#x2F;dev&#x2F;zero</code></pre>

At my parents house where I lived for around 15 years, next door the lady was a professional breeder of dogs. 5 Dogs at any one time at our house. They bark all day and all night. It used to drive me insane.

I tend to think better with low level background noise. Or I&#x27;ll do a completely different task whilst my brain is chewing on something in the background. I find total silence distracting.

A lot of those cool deconstructed offices with high ceilings and exposed ductwork are about 80-85 dB. That&#x27;s about as loud as a bus going by.

Some people can write with noises but I cannot stand it! I keep on reading the sentence, over and over again.

thanks hackernews for deleting my post. I linked to the original source in the article and the post gets delted - what the...?

My takeaway from the article is that you can get just about snything to the top of hacker news on Sunday night.

I don&#x27;t understand how this can be accurate. Have you ever heard nature? It tends to be quite loud.

headphones. white noise.

<i>Every time a siren shrieks on the street, our conscious minds might ignore it, but other brain regions behave as if that siren were a predator barreling straight for us.</i><p>It&#x27;s worth mentioning that a siren is specifically meant to pull your attention. It&#x27;s not really the same as a constant background susurrus.<p>I work in the heart of a city, and there&#x27;s a constant babble of traffic and pedestrians a few floors below. That&#x27;s fine and can be tuned out - the noise that&#x27;s distracting me from concentration is random loud office noise. Noise that can&#x27;t be filtered out as &#x27;background&#x27;.

Wasn&#x27;t Schopenhauer the one who noted an inverse relationship between noise tolerance and intelligence?