#Microblog Monday 293: Shhhhhhhhh
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I love quiet. Before COVID-19, I spent six hours of my day in near silence. There was the hum of the refrigerator and an occasional meeting, but in between, there was just the click of the keyboard or my own breathing.
When I first heard about sound-canceling headphones, I thought they actually blocked out sound. Like all sound. That would be amazing. But then I tried a pair on and I could still hear everything. It sounded dull and faraway, but that just made the sounds more annoying because now my brain was trying to figure out what I was hearing vs. knowing what I was hearing and trying to ignore it.
I am balancing out missing quiet with being thankful everyone is sheltering in place so I can turn off worrying about them. But… like I wouldn’t mind a silent hour now and then.
Do you like background noise, or do you like to relax or work in silence?
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13 comments
Silence, please! My husband, who is usually home by himself, seems pleased to have an audience, because he never stops talking.
I don’t mind a bit of background music, or the TV news channel on low. Working in an office with cubicles, you get used to a certain amount of chatter around you. But too much noise is definitely distracting and annoying.
When I work, I love absolute silence. My husband, on the other hand, always has his earbuds on and is listening to music. I joke that the two of us would never be study partners in college coz he would drive me nuts with his music. When I do chores such as cooking and laundry, I like to listen to podcast. That’s about the only time I need to have something on.
I don’t need complete silence for work and concentration, but I do find certain types of background noise distracting and annoying. Like the sounds of my sons’ video games, their squabbling, our dogs’ barking incessantly.
My job requires focused concentration for a fair amount of the work I do, and it’s challenging to be able to concentrate like that in my house with my sons home, esp. when I am already struggling to concentrate at times due to the low-level anxiety that seems to be my constant companion these days.
The background noise has to be my choice. E.g., not my kids bickering.
I’ve been plugged into iheart radio with headphones while working from home.
I do like background noise. Music is my muse 🙂
I do not like commotion. On occasion, having everyone home drives me nuts for this reason.
Depends on what I’m doing. Deep thought for me requires silence. However for brainless work, I like music to get me through it.
Yes, I get it!
I am taking long showers like a teenage boy now because I need the silence.
I like some background noise or, as is most often the case music playing in the background (or my ears when I’m in a cube at work)
I like it both ways–when I a writing, creating, planning, thinking–complete silence. I go into my home office and close the door. When I’m grading papers (ugh!), background noise welcome.
I agree with Lori – I like background noise but not commotion. Today my husband took a break from work and took the girls for a bike ride. I had 1.5 hours in my house alone for the first time in a month and it was glorious. I love my family and we are having a lot of good times. But sometimes we all need some quiet.
I like both silence and some music, but not a lot of talking. I’m pretty good at tuning stuff out, like when Bryce is on a conference call and I’m trying to do stuff in my office, I don’t pay attention to his calls at all. However, when I was going to the gym, they had music playing and so when I tried to listen to something with headphones/earbuds in I couldn’t tune out the extra noise and it drove me crazy. So I just listened to the music they put out because it was too much input. But music helps when we’re eating dinner so I can’t concentrate on the horrible sound of another human chewing. Bryce loves his noise-cancelling headphones, I think they’re creepy personally. 🙂
I like both. My house growing up had the almost constant refrain of the radio – in the mornings it was news and interviews on the National Radio, and music more often in the afternoons. I do that myself now. If I have something serious to write, or need to concentrate, I’ll turn it off. But if I’m working on something visual (like editing photos) I love having music, or interviews, or an audiobook to fill that void. I don’t mind silence – my husband is partially deaf, and so too much noise drives him crazy, though he likes background music – but after a while, it will weigh on me. We even take bluetooth speakers with us on holiday, so we aren’t surrounded by silence in our hotel rooms.
But I also freak out if I’m surrounded by too much noise – all that sensory input can hurt!