Speaker 1: TC.
Speaker 2: You've been around, You've seen me live many places. Oh yes,
Speaker 2: I move a lot, but nothing gets me up out
Speaker 2: of there quicker than a noisy neighbor. I feel like
Speaker 2: I'm so sensitive to it.
Speaker 3: And you know, as soon as you tell me, you're like,
Speaker 3: I can hear my neighbors. I'm like, oh, give her
Speaker 3: three months, she's gonna be gone. She just needs to
Speaker 3: find a place. She's gonna be out of there. My friend,
Speaker 3: uh uh, those ears are sensitive. She don't want to
Speaker 3: hear none of it. She's not gonna be like, oh,
Speaker 3: you shouldn't be doing nothing. But she's like, if I
Speaker 3: can find quiet her neighbor, I will opt for that.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna opt for it. I know I have a
Speaker 2: little sensitivity, but I also know I'm not alone. There's
Speaker 2: plenty of memes, but people are like the moon walking upstairs,
Speaker 2: or they're a town stomping or like next door. I'm like,
Speaker 2: they have to be playing soccer, they must be preparing
Speaker 2: for the World Cup.
Speaker 4: What is it?
Speaker 5: What's going on?
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I'm TT and I'm Zakiyah And this
Speaker 3: is Dope Labs. Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast
Speaker 3: that mixes hardcore science with pop culture and a healthy
Speaker 3: dose of friendship. All right, we know I'm not alone
Speaker 3: when it comes to the noise and just sound in general.
Speaker 1: M h.
Speaker 3: You know, and I think that we also know that
Speaker 3: not all noises created equal. There's some noise that you
Speaker 3: can live with where it's like, Okay, my washing machine
Speaker 3: is loud, but it's fine. But then there are other
Speaker 3: noises where it's like, uh uh, I can't build this
Speaker 3: at all, Like nails on a chalkboard.
Speaker 2: My equivalent of nails on a chalkboard is people playing
Speaker 2: YouTube videos and stuff on speakerphone, Like why does it
Speaker 2: sound so different than if it were coming from real speakers.
Speaker 3: I'm just like, why do you think all of us
Speaker 3: want to hear what you're doing? Just like people have
Speaker 3: physical space bubbles, I feel like we should also be
Speaker 3: considering people's sound bubbles. Yes, I'll be trying to be quiet,
Speaker 3: like I'm like, I don't want to be intruding on
Speaker 3: people's ears.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yes, I was also raised with parents that said shush.
Speaker 2: It feels like nobody ever told some of y'all to
Speaker 2: shush listen.
Speaker 3: We used to be a country. We used to shush
Speaker 3: people all the time. Now everybody's just running rampant. So
Speaker 3: considering all of that, what do we want to know?
Speaker 3: I want to know what makes a sound a noise?
Speaker 4: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like, it's not just sound anymore exactly, it's a
Speaker 3: nuisance exactly. And it feels like there's a thin line
Speaker 3: between what makes the difference between the two. So I
Speaker 3: want to know where that line is.
Speaker 2: I want to know more about not just how we
Speaker 2: categorize the sounds, but like the intensity of it, So
Speaker 2: more about volume, you know. I know Apple had that
Speaker 2: thing on the phone that's like, yeah, you could set
Speaker 2: up and it'll tell you or your Apple Watch it
Speaker 2: will be like loud noise. I used to do it
Speaker 2: in the shower, and so I'm like, when can a sound?
Speaker 2: And I was like, is that just the sound of
Speaker 2: the water that is that dangerous for me?
Speaker 3: And mine would do it every time I laughed, which
Speaker 3: I felt like was offensive or acuri.
Speaker 5: I don't know, you could choose.
Speaker 2: But what decibels do we need to be looking out
Speaker 2: for or is it just decibels?
Speaker 5: Is decibels what.
Speaker 4: We should be checking?
Speaker 3: You know? I feel like prolonged exposure to noise can
Speaker 3: drive someone nuts like my friend, but is it deeper
Speaker 3: than that, Like can a long exposure to noise have
Speaker 3: other effects on us?
Speaker 5: Let's jump into the dissection.
Speaker 2: Okay, so today we're talking to someone who has brought
Speaker 2: the conversation about noise front and center, and they've done
Speaker 2: that in a way that challenges some long held assumptions.
Speaker 2: We're joined by Chris Burdick, author of Clamor How the
Speaker 2: Noise took Over the World and How We Can Take
Speaker 2: It Back.
Speaker 3: And this book really had a side eye everything. They're
Speaker 3: doing construction two houses down for me, and we want
Speaker 3: to figure out how our brains brace for sound. It's
Speaker 3: part science, part history, and all real life implications.
Speaker 4: Chris, Welcome to the lab.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for having me.
Speaker 5: All Right, I'm excited to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Okay, because you called noise a major public health threat,
Speaker 2: and that's a strong claim, but I am in agreement
Speaker 2: because I feel like I hear.
Speaker 4: Noise that other people don't very sensitive and I'm like,
Speaker 4: what is that?
Speaker 5: What did you hear that?
Speaker 4: Low hum?
Speaker 2: And I think before we even get into the effects
Speaker 2: of it, I want to say define for our audience
Speaker 2: what counts as noise because it's not just as you
Speaker 2: say in your book, is more than unwanted sound. Help
Speaker 2: us understand what noise is.
Speaker 1: It's very tricky to define it.
Speaker 6: And one new definition that has come up that I
Speaker 6: kind of like was put out by the American Public
Speaker 6: Health Association in twenty twenty one, and they said noise
Speaker 6: should be defined and as unwanted and or harmful sound.
Speaker 6: And so they were saying what has been known but
Speaker 6: has been overlooked, is that whether or not you love
Speaker 6: the sound that you're listening to at ninety five decibels
Speaker 6: in your AirPods, it's going to cause damage to your
Speaker 6: inner ear. You know, you have interruptions of sleep that
Speaker 6: you are not aware of from noise from roads and
Speaker 6: airplanes and et cetera. And that does not require you
Speaker 6: to not want the sound. It just happens. So there's
Speaker 6: all sorts of ways that noise can affect us. It
Speaker 6: is a subjective thing, but there are many many ways
Speaker 6: that go beyond the sort of simplified way that we've
Speaker 6: traditionally defined it.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned ninety five decibels, and I want to
Speaker 2: give some context for folks. So around ten decibels is
Speaker 2: the level of like normal breathing. We go up from
Speaker 2: their thirty decibels. That's a whisper, and both of those
Speaker 2: are designated as like safe noise levels. On the other
Speaker 2: end of that range is like a police siren and
Speaker 2: that's around eighty decibels, and that is designated as loud.
Speaker 2: Now ninety to one hundred and ten, that's considered very
Speaker 2: loud and dangerous if you were exposed to it for
Speaker 2: longer than thirty minutes. And so that's stuff like power tools, blenders,
Speaker 2: anybody has a ninja creamy, I know you know what
Speaker 2: I'm talking about. And like nightclubs, so you really only
Speaker 2: need to be in the club for thirty minutes, get
Speaker 2: you a couple dances, and get out there.
Speaker 4: It was free before midnight.
Speaker 2: Just go there thirty minutes, get out out, and then
Speaker 2: one to one hundred and forty decibels that's dangerous noise
Speaker 2: levels and that's painful. So that's concerts, fireworks, gunshots, jackhammers, ambulances.
Speaker 2: This tracks for me because the last time I was
Speaker 2: at a concert, I was like, oh, I need ear plugs,
Speaker 2: I needed things. I need to open the ear things
Speaker 2: they put on the babies for safety.
Speaker 3: So also in Clamor, you challenge the classic definition and
Speaker 3: you make the case that it's not always about volume,
Speaker 3: it's about contacts and perception. And so just like the
Speaker 3: cure saying, where I will be in her house and
Speaker 3: she'd be like, do you hear that?
Speaker 4: It's driving me nuts? And I'm like, is it me talking?
Speaker 3: And she'd be like, no, my neighbors. Can't you hear them?
Speaker 3: It sounds like they're they're moving something slim.
Speaker 5: And cabinets, we're back is something.
Speaker 3: I don't hear a thing, and so I don't feel
Speaker 3: like I notice those types of frequencies. Can you break
Speaker 3: down how quieter sounds can still cause harm or distraction?
Speaker 3: And why do we underestimate noise as a population.
Speaker 6: Our hearing is a defensive sensory system first and foremost.
Speaker 6: If you think about when we go to sleep, we
Speaker 6: shut down for the night, our eyes close, but your
Speaker 6: ears stay awake. Your ears are still attuned. And then
Speaker 6: what they're looking for are signals. They're looking for anything
Speaker 6: that is a potential danger to you, and we have
Speaker 6: no idea what the dangers might be, so we are
Speaker 6: constantly kind of what the sleep research is called having
Speaker 6: these awakenings, so periods of time when our resting heart
Speaker 6: rate raises up, our blood pressure goes back up to normal.
Speaker 6: These happen about twenty to twenty five times a night
Speaker 6: in a normal night's sleep. The problem happens when sound
Speaker 6: that the research says starts around forty five decibels. When
Speaker 6: that kind of sound is in your bedroom, it can
Speaker 6: start to increase the number of awakenings that you have.
Speaker 6: This can lead to a chronic triggering of a stress
Speaker 6: reaction has all of the same cascading impacts that kind
Speaker 6: of a chronic stress has and lead to those sorts
Speaker 6: of things. So that's one way when you're awake, the
Speaker 6: same things happen with Say you're in an office space
Speaker 6: and you're trying to get your work done and your
Speaker 6: coworkers are chattering on their cell phones with their friends
Speaker 6: about their weekends or something like that. This is something
Speaker 6: that's not pticularly loud, but because you can understand them
Speaker 6: and your brain is looking for those signals, and so
Speaker 6: your focus has diverted, your ability to do your work
Speaker 6: is stymied, and this causes again stress. People who have
Speaker 6: done the lab work on this show how when people
Speaker 6: are trying to do these cognitive tasks and they're being
Speaker 6: interrupted by noise, then their cortisol levels go up and
Speaker 6: their stress reactions go up.
Speaker 5: That means my cortisol is through the roof.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 2: Now, when you gave that example, Chris, of being in
Speaker 2: office and hearing other people chatter, I feel that way
Speaker 2: about when people are playing like their phones or watching
Speaker 2: videos on speaker and you can hear it because it's
Speaker 2: like a high pitch. Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2: I read rather if it was like musaic or something
Speaker 2: that I can't pick up every now and then I
Speaker 2: hear the words and I'm like, what is it?
Speaker 5: I hate it?
Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing I wrote about restaurant noise.
Speaker 6: So there's a there's one issue there where in the
Speaker 6: nineteen nineties they that they wanted to get rid of
Speaker 6: all the upholstery and all the carpets and got this
Speaker 6: new modern industrial look with all kinds of hard surfaces everywhere,
Speaker 6: which allowed every sound to reverberate and endlessly bounce. And
Speaker 6: then you brought the kitchen in from where it was
Speaker 6: and put it in the middle of everybody, and then
Speaker 6: you had cranking up the music so this creates a
Speaker 6: cacophony that people have a real hard time having conversations in.
Speaker 6: But on the flip side, have you ever eaten in
Speaker 6: a restaurant that's too quiet where you hear everybody's slurping
Speaker 6: their soup next to you and you can hear everybody's
Speaker 6: you know, everyone has to like whisper and they're kind
Speaker 6: of afraid to talk. It's excruciating. And so there's a
Speaker 6: level at which having sound as a background, when you
Speaker 6: can't distinguish and it's not intelligible, is a benefit to
Speaker 6: your ability to focus and have conversations or do your work.
Speaker 2: Now, I think we're talking about sound and noise as
Speaker 2: a nuisance, but in your book you talk about noise
Speaker 2: being weaponized, and I'm curious about, like, what's one of
Speaker 2: the wildest examples you came across while researching this.
Speaker 6: So well, the wildest one was a French I think
Speaker 6: it might have been Russian originally, that he was living
Speaker 6: in Marseille and he was a rogue scientist at this
Speaker 6: lab where he was trying to use infrasound, which is
Speaker 6: sound that's below our ability to hear. It's really low frequency,
Speaker 6: and he was trying to use that to essentially kill people.
Speaker 1: I mean, oh, what like.
Speaker 3: The ear did kind of Okay, So let's talk about
Speaker 3: frequency before we get into this death sound. So sound
Speaker 3: is all about vibrations, and they're invisible waves that travel
Speaker 3: through the air, water, and solids. And frequency is how
Speaker 3: many of those vibrations happen in a given amount of time,
Speaker 3: and that's measured and hurts. And the faster the vibrations,
Speaker 3: the higher the frequency. And that's when we hear a
Speaker 3: high pitch sound like a whistle. And on the other
Speaker 3: side of that, when vibrations are slower, like the deep
Speaker 3: banging of a drum, we hear a lower pitch. So,
Speaker 3: in essence, frequency and pitch are two sides of the
Speaker 3: same coin. Fast vibrations create a high pitch and slow
Speaker 3: vibrations create low pitch. Okay, So Chris, let's continue with
Speaker 3: the death sound machine that they were trying to make.
Speaker 6: He created this giant whistle essentially that blasted out in
Speaker 6: for sound at t one hundred and sixty decibels or
Speaker 6: something like that, so very intense but very low frequency.
Speaker 6: The problem was he just he didn't kill anybody. The
Speaker 6: body is too compost the problem.
Speaker 4: Okay, this is getting a little dark.
Speaker 1: The problem for his theory.
Speaker 4: Okay, with you, I'm with you.
Speaker 3: And with such a low frequency, that sound wave is
Speaker 3: like really big, you know, and it would be really
Speaker 3: hard to actually hit a person with a sound wave
Speaker 3: that is that big. It's like trying to hit a
Speaker 3: fly with a jump rope, you know, Like if you're
Speaker 3: like flinging that jump rope up and down to create waves,
Speaker 3: like the chances of you hitting the fly is yeah,
Speaker 3: slim to none.
Speaker 6: So the idea being, if you're going to try to
Speaker 6: harness that much power to hurt somebody, there's a lot
Speaker 6: easier ways than trying to aim some kind of infrasound
Speaker 6: gun at them. In general, the sound weapons that are
Speaker 6: actually working and are out there are based on loudness.
Speaker 6: They're based on just blowing your ears out, which has
Speaker 6: some serious long term irreversible damage. These things were developed
Speaker 6: by the Navy. They're called the l RAD, which is
Speaker 6: the long Range Acoustic Device, and they have subsequently been
Speaker 6: used by law enforcement, and that's been very controversial because,
Speaker 6: like I said, when you get hit by a sound
Speaker 6: that loud and it damages your inner ear, you don't
Speaker 6: get that back. So it's as a crowd control measure.
Speaker 6: It's controversial depending on how it's used. How powerful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Oh my goodness, I don't think I knew that.
Speaker 3: I did not know that that's still in use today.
Speaker 6: Or protests in New York of it was a police
Speaker 6: brutality case that was that people were protesting and they
Speaker 6: came out with this l rad device and they blasted
Speaker 6: at people. They were holding it right at them. There
Speaker 6: was a lawsuit where the defense was saying that the
Speaker 6: police department was saying sound noise is not a use
Speaker 6: of force, but of course it is.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 6: It is okay, So the ruling came down that they
Speaker 6: settled it. Basically, they're allowed to use this advice now
Speaker 6: to sort of broadcast that please disperse commands, but they're
Speaker 6: not allowed to use what's called the deterrent tone, which
Speaker 6: is the super high intensity pain causing decibel tone. That's
Speaker 6: where things stand. They're still in the arsenal right.
Speaker 3: Wow, I think this is a great transition into the biology.
Speaker 3: You just talked about the extreme effects of really really
Speaker 3: loud sound, But how does chronic noise affect our bodies
Speaker 3: like sleep, heart, and stress?
Speaker 6: The stress response in an acute way is a potential
Speaker 6: benefit to us. This is something that when you have
Speaker 6: a response, you have this inflammatory response where you know,
Speaker 6: white blood cells and other disease fighting cells come rushing out.
Speaker 6: When you have this stress response, just in case you
Speaker 6: know you're about to get bit by a sabertooth tiger
Speaker 6: or something like that, you need to have that wound
Speaker 6: healing quickly. But like any stress response, when it becomes chronic,
Speaker 6: when you have so much inflammation coming all the time,
Speaker 6: your arteries get clogged, you have a dysregulation in terms
Speaker 6: of hormones. Your stress hormones are all out of whack. Basically,
Speaker 6: stress in a chronic way, no matter what the source,
Speaker 6: is a toxic thing.
Speaker 1: There was a.
Speaker 6: Study out of mass General Hospital that was doing pet scans,
Speaker 6: full body pet scans of people who had cancer and
Speaker 6: so they were coming back periodically to have to be
Speaker 6: checked to see, you know, if they still had you know,
Speaker 6: we're still in remission. And so they did these pet scans,
Speaker 6: and so these cardiologists looked at the data of seven
Speaker 6: or ten years of these pet scans, and they looked
Speaker 6: at where these folks lived, and they decided they sort
Speaker 6: of categorized them as being in they were stressed exposed
Speaker 6: or not stress exposed. If they lived in an area
Speaker 6: that was high noise exposure based on the modeling of
Speaker 6: nearby roads or overflights and transportation noise, they were stress exposed.
Speaker 6: It's part of the kind of stress soup. And I
Speaker 6: often think about a lot of the non auditory noise
Speaker 6: that we have to deal with now that's also stressing
Speaker 6: us out. All of the overstuffed email in boxes, and
Speaker 6: we can't get away from the pings and dings of
Speaker 6: our phones because people are constantly trying to reach us,
Speaker 6: and then we are scrolling through our social media and
Speaker 6: that's stressing people out. I think it's of a piece
Speaker 6: that is weighing on our cognition and on our focus
Speaker 6: and on our I don't know, peace of mind, for
Speaker 6: lack of a better term.
Speaker 2: We've talked about this a little bit. T T and
Speaker 2: I did this kind of web campaign that was about
Speaker 2: looking up from your phone. Just because we get tied
Speaker 2: in this loop of scrolling and seeing notifications. I have
Speaker 2: moved to like putting my phone and focus mode where
Speaker 2: I don't even see the badges that show up on
Speaker 2: the apps. I don't even want to see them anymore,
Speaker 2: you know, because I think those kind of things just
Speaker 2: build up a little bit of stress and every now then,
Speaker 2: like especially when you start your morning with that kind
Speaker 2: of activity, it sets the tone for the entire day.
Speaker 2: And you know, I was going to ask you to
Speaker 2: help me understand how anticipating noise, you know, could affect us.
Speaker 2: But once you define noise as unwanted signal, then it
Speaker 2: became very clear. Because I was thinking, I can anticipate, Oh,
Speaker 2: there's gonna be so many emails, or oh I I
Speaker 2: have this project, have so much stuff to do, they're
Speaker 2: gonna message me. Yes, you ever wake up a few
Speaker 2: minutes before.
Speaker 3: Or when somebody's ring tone is your alarm sound the
Speaker 3: amount of stressed or even like, oh you have a
Speaker 3: meeting coming in fifteen minutes, that sound, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: It stresses me out every.
Speaker 6: Time I put my phone on silent, and I get
Speaker 6: in trouble for it because I miss all the calls
Speaker 6: from my wife and my kids are like trying to
Speaker 6: get me.
Speaker 1: But it's worth it.
Speaker 4: You're not stressed out. They are because they can't get
Speaker 4: in touch me.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 5: My court is all is low.
Speaker 4: I love that that's so funny.
Speaker 2: I think we're talking about silencing our devices, getting rid
Speaker 2: of some of the noise. This also makes me think
Speaker 2: about this concept. There's this book about like your address
Speaker 2: or zip code, and it talks about how almost it's
Speaker 2: almost like destiny of sorts, where you live in your
Speaker 2: exposure to yes, chemical and ear pollutants, but sound as well,
Speaker 2: like you're talking about. And I think it makes me
Speaker 2: think about is silence always the goal or are there
Speaker 2: other types of sounds that are good for us? Because
Speaker 2: we had a listener Linda who sent me a message
Speaker 2: asked about sound baths and healing and so can sound
Speaker 2: be restorative in a way?
Speaker 6: Yes, And I'm glad you asked that because another thing
Speaker 6: that when I started writing this book, when the pandemic
Speaker 6: really came down on us, I had to cancel all
Speaker 6: the reporting I had planned, and everything had to be
Speaker 6: stopped for a while. But beyond that, I was kind
Speaker 6: of struck by all of a sudden, the cities were
Speaker 6: emptying out, and businesses were shutting down, and people weren't
Speaker 6: going to school and nobody was getting together. And when
Speaker 6: people measured this different cities, they found a four to
Speaker 6: six decibel drop during the height of the COVID, and
Speaker 6: people had a lot of I had mixed feelings about it,
Speaker 6: of course, it was sort of like, yeah, I love
Speaker 6: hearing the birds.
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 6: I do find some solace in that amidst all this insanity.
Speaker 6: But you can't escape the context that this quiet world
Speaker 6: stems from people losing their livelihoods, people losing their lives, people,
Speaker 6: you know, over trauma, a huge amount of trauma. And
Speaker 6: so I started thinking about what do we really want
Speaker 6: when we're fighting noise? What is the kind of goal here?
Speaker 6: Is it just quiet? Because we had quiet? And I
Speaker 6: don't know if that's really what we wanted. There are
Speaker 6: so many ways that sound can be our ally, and
Speaker 6: when we think about it, especially when we think about
Speaker 6: it proactively, and we're not just what I call whack
Speaker 6: a molling decibels. Quiet is not the only worthwhile sonic goal,
Speaker 6: and silence certainly is not.
Speaker 3: Are there long term of differences and people who grow
Speaker 3: up around a lot of noise versus people who don't.
Speaker 3: But then when I think of that question, I think
Speaker 3: of the demographics of people who are most likely going
Speaker 3: to be in louder environments. There was someone who wrote
Speaker 3: that the sound of gentrification is silence. So wealthier people
Speaker 3: weaponize noise ordinances to turn down vibrant cultures, particularly in
Speaker 3: areas undergoing rapid gentrification.
Speaker 4: Can you talk.
Speaker 3: About how silence is weaponized and then the effects of
Speaker 3: silence versus noise on different populations.
Speaker 6: First of all, I think two things can be true.
Speaker 6: I think our interpretation of sound and what we designate
Speaker 6: noise versus sound is absolutely impacted by our personal histories,
Speaker 6: our cultural backgrounds, our mood, what have you.
Speaker 1: That matters a lot.
Speaker 6: I don't know that everybody who grew up in a
Speaker 6: city feels the same way about sound, or I would
Speaker 6: certainly not say that everybody belonging to any particular ethnic
Speaker 6: groups thinks the same way about sound. But those things
Speaker 6: do matter a lot, and it's true in the same
Speaker 6: vein that noise ordinances and anti noise campaigns throughout history
Speaker 6: have been used to target the particular noise makers, not
Speaker 6: just the sounds themselves, just to people that if you
Speaker 6: were in Victorian England, you have all these immigrants coming
Speaker 6: from southern Europe working in the factories there, and then
Speaker 6: they were the targets of the anti noise or ordinances
Speaker 6: and when you have gentrification, noise complaints go up and
Speaker 6: they correlate with that change in.
Speaker 1: The neighborhood as well. And I know that there is
Speaker 1: I think there were.
Speaker 6: In the eighties, there was an anti noise campaign. There
Speaker 6: was ostensibly just about amplified music in public, but it
Speaker 6: basically used to target black youth with boomboxes.
Speaker 5: It's the key.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you remember, but I talked to
Speaker 3: you about this because I used to live in DC
Speaker 3: proper in Shaw and there was a store that had
Speaker 3: a speaker outside of it that played Go Go music
Speaker 3: and every day it was blast and it was loud,
Speaker 3: but it was like the sounds of DC Go Go
Speaker 3: music exactly.
Speaker 4: It's like a lot of percussion, and no one had
Speaker 4: a problem. We would always just you know, walk past it.
Speaker 3: But then there was this luxury apartment that was built
Speaker 3: like kind of right across the street from that, and
Speaker 3: someone started calling the police and complaining, and so that
Speaker 3: store had to move their speaker away. But that was
Speaker 3: like a staple in the neighborhood, and so it caused
Speaker 3: like a huge backlash where it started the whole Don't
Speaker 3: Mute DC movement and sooner or later that speaker was
Speaker 3: right back out there playing Go Go because we read that.
Speaker 6: I think the other thing that I think is true
Speaker 6: is that there is so much that we share as
Speaker 6: humans in our reactions to sound.
Speaker 1: We share the same.
Speaker 6: Delicate inner ear anatomy and connections to our brain. We
Speaker 6: share the same hair trigger connections between hearing and our
Speaker 6: fight or flight response and stress. We share certain limitations
Speaker 6: and our ability to focus. We all need to sleep.
Speaker 6: I talk to so many people from Washington Heights and
Speaker 6: in southwest Detroit and areas that have so many other
Speaker 6: kind of environmental insults aimed at them, and they care
Speaker 6: about noise. They care about noise as part of a
Speaker 6: sort of caring about having a healthy place to live.
Speaker 6: Sometimes we get caught up in one or the other.
Speaker 6: We get caught up in noise as just a straight
Speaker 6: up health threat that is this next second half smoke
Speaker 6: and we need to stop it, or we get caught
Speaker 6: up in talking about this is another just another piece
Speaker 6: of gentrification. I think that these two things exist side
Speaker 6: by side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as you've been sharing this, I've been thinking about
Speaker 2: structurally some things we know. I've been thinking about even
Speaker 2: just accit like even just trees in neighborhoods to absorb sounds,
Speaker 2: to keep in place, especially I'm in the South, to
Speaker 2: keep neighborhoods cooler where they have historically been trees and
Speaker 2: they're able to give great tree cover and to absorb sound.
Speaker 2: I think about it in the context of, yes, it
Speaker 2: would be great, you know, the neighbor thing I'm used to.
Speaker 2: I have been in a townholl I don't want to
Speaker 2: say I'm used to I deal with I've been in
Speaker 2: a townhome or an apartment, but I think that everybody
Speaker 2: can't be in a single family home. The best solutions
Speaker 2: are some kind of trade off of yes, hearing noise,
Speaker 2: but also being close to work, and being close to
Speaker 2: not just work, but like parks, and being close to
Speaker 2: healthy food. Right, and when we have mixed use developments
Speaker 2: or we have multifamily units and structures that allow that,
Speaker 2: there may be some noise trade off that comes with that.
Speaker 5: TT and I think a.
Speaker 2: Lot about soundscapes as creators of audio. She came to
Speaker 2: visit me at my parents' house a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 2: and I was thinking about when I first got there
Speaker 2: and you were like, oh, we're in the country, and
Speaker 2: I'm like yes, And I had to just stop and
Speaker 2: be like.
Speaker 5: What do I hear? What birds? Do I hear? What
Speaker 5: insects trilling? Do I hear?
Speaker 1: That?
Speaker 2: Feel like home to me? That's part of my soundscape.
Speaker 2: That would probably be a nuisance to someone else that didn't.
Speaker 5: Like what is that? I'm like, that's a frog?
Speaker 4: Don't you know that? I don't that near me?
Speaker 2: Told us about things you've seen that are creative or
Speaker 2: maybe even counterintuitive approaches to creating soundscapes that fight noise
Speaker 2: pollution also allow vibrant living.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So I'll tell you about a researcher who she's
Speaker 6: an urbanist. Her name is Antonella Riddicki, and she created
Speaker 6: an app called Hush City. Antonella was looking at some
Speaker 6: of the big cities that have quiet areas, and what
Speaker 6: she saw was many of them tend to be in
Speaker 6: the middle of some giant park, or on the outskirts
Speaker 6: of the city, or somewhere that people have a really
Speaker 6: hard time getting to them. And so the question is
Speaker 6: what's the purpose here. The widest number of people access
Speaker 6: to a respite from city noise and a place to
Speaker 6: feel rejuvenated, we should have what she called everyday quiet areas.
Speaker 6: So the purpose of this Hush City app was the
Speaker 6: crowdsource what everyday quiet areas would be in your city
Speaker 6: and what she was doing it as part of a
Speaker 6: public service, but part of a research project. So the
Speaker 6: question is, like, what were people identifying as quiet? What
Speaker 6: did people like? And it wasn't the lowest decibel places.
Speaker 6: They liked places that had a different kind of an
Speaker 6: acoustic feel to your busy, crazy streetscape. Maybe it was
Speaker 6: a pocket park, maybe it was just a quieter side street.
Speaker 6: They really liked when they could hear people, not tons
Speaker 6: of people, like they like places that were conducive to socializing.
Speaker 6: Antonella said is people are not looking for silence, they
Speaker 6: want places of high sonic quality. And this approach is
Speaker 6: kind of, I think, gaining ground at least where people
Speaker 6: think about sound already. They're starting to think about soundscapes,
Speaker 6: They're starting to think about high sonic quality and how
Speaker 6: to achieve that and what that means. The larger point
Speaker 6: I think is that sound connects us to our world,
Speaker 6: it connects us to our neighborhood, it connects us to
Speaker 6: each other. And when I think about noise, noise gets
Speaker 6: in the way of that noise is something that interrupts
Speaker 6: our connections.
Speaker 3: I feel like I've learned so much about sound from
Speaker 3: reading your book and talking to you today, Like it's
Speaker 3: really just revolutionizing how I'm just moving through the world
Speaker 3: and the things that I'm paying attention to.
Speaker 2: All Right, can you let folks know where they can
Speaker 2: find your book.
Speaker 6: The book is called clamor How Noise took Over the
Speaker 6: World and How We Can Take It Back. It is
Speaker 6: out now and available everywhere books are sold. I'll direct
Speaker 6: people to my web page, which is TRIPLEW dot Chris
Speaker 6: Burdick dot com, and that will link you to the
Speaker 6: book and some other writing that I have done. Anything
Speaker 6: you want to know and be able to contact me
Speaker 6: through it as well.
Speaker 4: That sounds great, amazing.
Speaker 5: This is really helping me. I just had some neighbors moving.
Speaker 2: I was just complaining to ts she was and so
Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, this is.
Speaker 5: Just part of living. This is important and I'm getting
Speaker 5: used to it. I'm getting better.
Speaker 3: You can find us on X and Instagram at Dope
Speaker 3: Labs podcast, tt.
Speaker 5: Is on X and Instagram at d R Underscore t Shoe.
Speaker 3: And you can find Takiya at z said so.
Speaker 5: Dope Labs is a production of Lamanada Media.
Speaker 3: Our senior supervising producer is Kristin Lapour and our associate
Speaker 3: producer is Issara Savez.
Speaker 2: Dope Labs is sound design, edited and mixed by James Farber.
Speaker 2: Lamanada Media's Vice President of Partnerships and Production is Jackie Danziger.
Speaker 2: Executive producer from iHeart Podcast is Katrina Norvil.
Speaker 5: Marketing lead is Alison Kanter.
Speaker 3: Original music composed and produced by Taka Yatsuzawa and Alex
Speaker 3: sudi Ura, with additional music by Elijah Harvey. Dope Lab
Speaker 3: is executive produced by us T T Show Dia and
Speaker 3: Kia Wattley.