If you feel the world is getting noisier, you’re not alone. Garbage trucks, police and fire sirens, car traffic, barking dogs, loud cell phone conversations, helicopters, portable stereos, car alarms, leaf blowers... The list is long and seems to be growing all the time. And when we’re not hearing unwanted sounds from the street, we’re generating our own noise, yakking away on bluetooth headsets or drowning out the outside world with our iPod earbuds.
Curiously though, little research has ben done as to the effect the cacophony of noise in the urban environment has on us. But that may change thanks to the work of local university student Milena Droumeva.
Droumeva is a PhD student in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. She’s just been given a $75,000 grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to assess the soundness of our increasingly multi-layered sound environment.
“Silence is becoming a privilege and not a right in our social-media savvy and technologically driven society,” says Droumeva. “We spend more and more time in artificial soundscapes, comprised of many sounds that are often, individually, intentionally designed to alert us, give us information, set mood, and so on. Yet there is little research and analysis of these sounds and no one has really looked at their combined effect on human attention, learning and well-being.”
Specifically, Droumeva will study how sounds -- individually and collectively -- stimulate or degrade learning. She says she’s not sure where her research will lead. “Hopefully, an exploration of the sound environment and our practices and attitudes around it will bring more awareness of what is happening in our audible world, and, as a result, what is happening to us. This is a challenging task because I don't know that there is any way to test whether the soundscape is changing us, and yet, I strongly feel that it is changing us in subtle ways, and we need to be aware of that.”
Droumeva doesn’t only research noise, she also actively creates sounds. She’s an electroacoustic composer and sound artist (you can find samples of her work at www.sfu.ca/~mvdroume/soundsweb.htm). Her interest in sound came about by chance -- when she enrolled in SFU’s School of Communication in 2001 all the courses she wanted were full. A program advisor suggested she take a course called “Electroacoustic Dimensions of Acoustic Communication”. The course inspired her so much, she decided to concentrate in the area of audio studies.
She's not the only researcher investigating noise. A group at the UBC School of Environmental Health led by Hugh Davies is working on a Metro Vancouver Noise Map. In England, the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) sponsors research to assess attitudes to environmental noise and its effects on health and to help develop a national ambient noise strategy. DEFRA has already released papers on barking dogs, neighbour noise, pubs and clubs, hard floors, traffic noise and how to minimize noise. DEFRA’s research can be found at www.defra.gov.uk/environment/quality/noise/research/mori/index.htm.
If noise is a concern for you, there may be ways to get help. The City of Vancouver, for example, has a program called “SoundSmart.” Information is available at http://vancouver.ca/engsvcs/projects/soundsmart/index.htm. There's also a group called "The Right to Quiet Society for Soundscape Awareness and Protection". Their website is at www.quiet.org, email info@quiet.org.
Silent night, everybody!
If you feel the world is getting noisier, you’re not alone. Garbage trucks, police and fire sirens, car traffic, barking dogs, loud cell phone conversations, helicopters and planes, portable stereos, car alarms, leaf blowers... The list is long and seems to be growing all the time. And when we’re not hearing unwanted sounds from the street, we’re listening to our own cell phone conversations, music or television shows.
Curiously though, little research has ben done as to the effect the cacophony of noise in the urban environment has on us. But that may change thanks to the work of local university student Milena Droumeva.
Droumeva is a PhD student in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University, and she’s just been given a $75,000 grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to assess the soundness of our increasingly multi-layered sound environment.
“Silence is becoming a privilege and not a right in our social-media savvy and technologically driven society,” says Droumeva. “We spend more and more time in artificial soundscapes, comprised of many sounds that are often, individually, intentionally designed to alert us, give us information, set mood, and so on.,” says Droumeva. “Yet there is little research and analysis of them and no one has really looked at their combined effect on human attention, learning and well-being.”
Specifically, Droumeva will study how sounds -- individually and collectively -- stimulate or degrade learning. She says she’s not sure where her research will lead. “Hopefully, an exploration of the sound environment and our practices and attitudes around it will bring more awareness of what is happening in our audible world, and as a result - what is happening to us. This is a challenging task because I don't know that there is any way to test whether the soundscape is changing us, and yet, I strongly feel that it is in subtle ways, and we need to be aware of that.”
But Droumeva doesn’t only research noise, she also actively creates sounds. She’s an electroacoustic composer and sound artist (you can find samples of her work at
http://www.sfu.ca/~mvdroume/soundsweb.htm). Her interest in sound came about by chance -- when she enrolled in SFU’s School of Communication in 2001 all the courses she wanted were full. A program advisor suggested she take a course called “Electroacoustic Dimensions of Acoustic Communication”. The course inspired her so much, she decided to concentrate in the area of audio studies.
Droumeva is not the only researcher investigating noise. In England, the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) sponsors research to assess attitudes to environmental noise and its effects on health and to help develop a national ambient noise strategy. DEFRA has already released papers on barking dogs, neighbour noise, pubs and clubs, hard floors, traffic noise and how to minimize noise. DEFRA’s research can be found at http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/quality/noise/research/mori/index.htm.
If noise is a concern for you, there may be ways to get help. The City of Vancouver, for example, has a program called “SoundSmart.” Information is available at http://vancouver.ca/engsvcs/projects/soundsmart/index.htm.
Silent night, everybodIf you feel the world is getting noisier, you’re not alone. Garbage trucks, police and fire sirens, car traffic, barking dogs, loud cell phone conversations, helicopters and planes, portable stereos, car alarms, leaf blowers... The list is long and seems to be growing all the time. And when we’re not hearing unwanted sounds from the street, we’re listening to our own cell phone conversations, music or television shows.
Curiously though, little research has ben done as to the effect the cacophony of noise in the urban environment has on us. But that may change thanks to the work of local university student Milena Droumeva.
Droumeva is a PhD student in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University, and she’s just been given a $75,000 grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to assess the soundness of our increasingly multi-layered sound environment.
“Silence is becoming a privilege and not a right in our social-media savvy and technologically driven society,” says Droumeva. “We spend more and more time in artificial soundscapes, comprised of many sounds that are often, individually, intentionally designed to alert us, give us information, set mood, and so on.,” says Droumeva. “Yet there is little research and analysis of them and no one has really looked at their combined effect on human attention, learning and well-being.”
Specifically, Droumeva will study how sounds -- individually and collectively -- stimulate or degrade learning. She says she’s not sure where her research will lead. “Hopefully, an exploration of the sound environment and our practices and attitudes around it will bring more awareness of what is happening in our audible world, and as a result - what is happening to us. This is a challenging task because I don't know that there is any way to test whether the soundscape is changing us, and yet, I strongly feel that it is in subtle ways, and we need to be aware of that.”
But Droumeva doesn’t only research noise, she also actively creates sounds. She’s an electroacoustic composer and sound artist (you can find samples of her work at
http://www.sfu.ca/~mvdroume/soundsweb.htm). Her interest in sound came about by chance -- when she enrolled in SFU’s School of Communication in 2001 all the courses she wanted were full. A program advisor suggested she take a course called “Electroacoustic Dimensions of Acoustic Communication”. The course inspired her so much, she decided to concentrate in the area of audio studies.
Droumeva is not the only researcher investigating noise. In England, the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) sponsors research to assess attitudes to environmental noise and its effects on health and to help develop a national ambient noise strategy. DEFRA has already released papers on barking dogs, neighbour noise, pubs and clubs, hard floors, traffic noise and how to minimize noise. DEFRA’s research can be found at http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/quality/noise/research/mori/index.htm.
If noise is a concern for you, there may be ways to get help. The City of Vancouver, for example, has a program called “SoundSmart.” Information is available at http://vancouver.ca/engsvcs/projects/soundsmart/index.htm.
Silent night, everybody!
