Noise irritation.

[Royston]

I was on the bus to work this morning, reading my David Bohm book and thoroughly enjoying it. Roughly halfway through the journey, a guy with a large backpack and some other stuff sat behind me and the bus pulled away. I could then hear this loud clang on the back of my seat, like something large and metal was striking the seat...this clanging continued.

 

I was about to turn around and suggest that he stopped the clanging, but then I realised it was my choice to read a book on the bus, and it was daft of me to make any preconceptions about not being disturbed in public. However, I just couldn't stop getting annoyed by this incessant clang.

 

I was about to turn around again, and then I figured it was completely irrational for me to get annoyed by that sound and not any other given sound...why don't I get irritated by the sound of the bus, or a car going past, or somebody clearing their throat on the bus.

 

So I tried to work out exactly why this was...at first it seemed analogous to making your loved one a surprise dinner. You're expecting them round as planned, you spend hours making a perfect meal, tidying the place et.c then they phone and say they're going to be late...so all your preconceptions of the meal go out the window, and you become annoyed, but the only reason you become annoyed is because you stupidly thought the meal was going to be perfect without a hitch...and that you put work into this blunder (which I want to discuss in a bit.)

 

Just as I momentarily thought, cool, I'll get stuck into that book and I'm really looking forward to the chapter on language, it wasn't to be, so I became irritated, but it was my irrationality that was causing this.

 

The other thing I thought, was that it was different to the other sounds I normally experience...I usually expect the sound of the bus, other traffic, and the odd cough and chit chat from other passengers. So I'm guessing it's probably a blend of those two things...which really, getting annoyed by either, is completely irrational. So why did I still get annoyed ?

 

Going back to the work thing (as an afterthought) why is it, that you may of put a few weeks or months work into something and it ends up fruitless, or gets lost or something, that the first reaction is to get angry. There's plenty of times in the past where I've spent even up to a year on something (an art project springs to mind) and the tutors have lost it...but I'm not angry about that now, it's still a years worth of work lost, but I just can't help but feel indifferent about it. If the same thing happened in the present (whatever that might be) I'd be pretty p*ssed about it, that seems irrational as well.

[DaveC426913]

There is nothing wrong with speaking up and asking for what you want if you are civil and polite about it. It is called assertiveness and the trick to it is manners.

 

You presumed that he was being rude, as opposed to simply being oblivious. What triggered your annoyance was your presumption that an altercation was inevitable. Chances are, the guy might have apologized profusely and would be only too happy to stop disturbing others.

 

A big smile goes a long way.

[Royston]

There is nothing wrong with speaking up and asking for what you want if you are civil and polite about it. It is called assertiveness and the trick to it is manners.

 

I would of done under normal circumstances...but I just can't figure out why I should be annoyed by one sound and not another. If somebody starts a conversation on the bus, I sometimes find myself concentrating on what they're saying and miss a whole page of what I'm reading, but I can't go up to them and say 'excuse me, you couldn't just finish that conversation when I'm off the bus, could you ?' In fact that doesn't annoy me in the slightest. Now the man making the clanging, is clearly not making the clanging sound to deliberatly put me off, so I have no reason to favour somebody talking, over that sound...or any other sound for that matter. Why are certain sounds, more irritating over others.

 

You presumed that he was being rude, as opposed to simply being oblivious. What triggered your annoyance was your presumption that an altercation was inevitable. Chances are, the guy might have apologized profusely and would be only too happy to stop disturbing others.

 

A big smile goes a long way.

 

I didn't presume he was being rude as such...I thought it was a little odd he didn't adjust whatever was making the clanging, to stop the noise, but again, unless he was doing it deliberatly, I can't favour another noise over the clanging.

 

I know I waffled in this thread abit (we had a spare hour at work...so we could pretty much do as we pleased) and the last bit of the OP is just rubbish. But going by my original points, it would be completely irrational of me to tell him to stop the clanging, over anybody else making a noise.

[gcol]

Are you trying to determine what annoyed you in this paticular situation, or can we consider the broader question of why some noises/sounds we find soothing, some thought provoking, and some damn annoying? It might be interesting to try and categorise them, but I suspect personal preferences will confuse the result. A couple of examples:

 

 

The screech of chalk on blackboard, the screech of high violin notes, car alarms, the cacophany of a flock of squabbling sparrows outside your bedroom window which renders your alarm clock superfluous.

 

Repetitive noises with time intervals where, during silent periods, you are on edge and tense just waiting for it to start again......

 

I could go on with a large list, very tedious, but you get the point.

 

Different types of noise, different types of annoyance, not everyone affected by the same thing.

[Royston]

Well the argument I wanted to get away from (I know you didn't bring it up) is that some noises are pleasing and some are not to the individual...so it's subjective. I'm trying to probe a little deeper into the cause of this subjectivity.

 

If I purposely scratched my nails down a blackboard, A: I'm prepared for the noise, and B: as it's on purpose I'm doing it to annoy others, so in that sense I'm getting pleasure from that noise (if that was my intention.)

 

If I went off to work to say, use a pneumatic drill, then clearly I already know and am prepared for the noise, especially as I'm causing it, so it would be irrational (if my original points are correct) to find it annoying.

 

If the sound is irregular and at high volume (like the clanging), could be said to be equally annoying as somebody with their headphones on, which is quiet and regular...all you can hear are the high frequencies of a high hat. They are distracting for different reasons, but they needn't be distracting if my original points are considered.

 

My point is, that to say one sound is more annoying than another is irrational, because it's only your preconceptions that hasn't made you prepared for a noise that makes it distracting, irritating...whatever.

 

This is why, despite the irregularity of traffic noise, people talking et.c they appear to be, not as irritating as somebody clanging on the back of my seat. I have absolutely no reason to find that irritating, over anything else...but I did, and it's purely to do with sounds I'm expecting on the journey, and my preconceptions of the journey on the bus. So if you consider my 'dinner' argument, if I had no preconceptions, there would be nothing to get annoyed about.

 

I want to know if this is true, or I'm just talking a load of pants, and it's far more complicated than that.

[gcol]

I agree completely. No pants. Your example, to me, comes squarely in the category of "annoying auditory fidgetting". People, including aggravating children, have been assaulted in extremis.

 

It is also like an intrusion into your spatial comfort zone, I sympathise. Everything normal.

[swansont]

The screech of chalk on blackboard

 

Apparently the effect of similar noises has been studied, as mentioned in the IgNobel prize awards

 

Acoustics: Why the sound of fingernails scraping on blackboards is so annoying, by D Lynn Halpern, Randolph Blake and James Hillenbrand

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5411816.stm

[Royston]

They tested these teen repellents in Britain, shops that were regularly vandalised et.c I think the two examples are separate...a sound that causes discomfort, compared to a sound that distracts, irritates.

 

My Dad used to be a security engineer, and one of the sirens used with the alarm at my parents house (it had a special name...can't remember off hand) was at such high amplitude and at such a specific frequency, that it was actually unbearable for anybody downstairs...believe me, I've heard it, and it was a real struggle to think straight even to press a couple of buttons to turn it off. I'm not talking about extreme amplitudes and frequencies (despite my comment on scratching a blackboard), but thanks for the link...nice hat !

[swansont]

Note that I wasn't referring to the teen repellent.