Understanding the impact of unwanted noises in our everyday life.
We're always conscious of the environment around us
Imagine this: you're in the Stone Age. You just saw a beautiful, delicious gazelle. Your focus shifts completely towards your dinner. You're already looking forward to seeing your gorgeous stone age wife and tell her you caught food for days!
But then, you hear a lion roaring behind you.
Now, your focus on the gazelle doesn't seem so important, does it?
That's because our focus shifts every time we hear a voice or a loud sound.
But they don't make homo sapiens like they used to
The world has evolved in a way where lions don't show up in the middle of your office. That would be fun though.
We have this mechanism that is perfect for hunting and paying attention to sounds around us. However, A cellphone is the modern equivalent of a lion's roar.
When you hear a phone call, your brain processes it as possible danger.
This is inefficient for someone who wants to focus.
Sound distracts us and stresses us because we're biologically programmed to do just that.
But how does it affect us on the real, modern world?
Over 50% of people have a hard time concentrating in open-plan offices
Noise triggers the fight-or-flight stress response, releasing stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol.
When these hormones are out of the picture, so is stress.
Environments that support health and wellbeing create positive outcomes.
A growing body of research indicates that spending time in quiet environments helps to lower stress and blood pressure levels, decrease fatigue, enable brain restoration, and promote healing.
Impact on productivity
Ringing phones and nearby conversations can affect your concentration and performance
Improving acoustic comfort leads to better focus, as studies show that a good acoustic performance in a room causes a 48% improvement of workers ability to focus on tasks.
Good acoustic performance leads to fewer work errors
The performance of standard workers regarding accuracy and short-term memory) improved by 10% when in a suitable acoustic environment, as shown by this study.
Impact on learning
Reducing reverberations in classrooms leads to improved behaviour, information retention and engagement
Improving acoustic comfort leads to better focus, as studies show that a good acoustic performance in a room causes a 48% improvement of workers ability to focus on tasks.
Plus, there's a 51% decrease in conversational distractions.
Hearing impaired students benefit incredibly from acoustical treatment
Teachers reported of lower stress levels, better behaviour and better comprehension from both hearing and hearing impaired pupils in this study.