There Is Comfort In The Sound

Lifehacker pointed recently to SimplyNoise, a site whose sole purpose is to generate white noise.  White noise, apparently, “can be helpful for everything from aiding sleep to blocking distraction.”  There are even desktop programs available so you can fill your speakers with what is supposed to be the soothing/focus-inducing sound of a snowed-out TV rushing rapids, even when you’re offline (ChatterBlocker for PC, Noise for Mac).

(On a side note, Wikipedia states that “white noise can be used to disorient individuals prior to interrogation and may be used as part of sensory deprivation techniques.”  So it can eliminate distraction, but also disorient you?  Hmmm…)

I feel that I do best when I have a little music and some subtle distractions (people moving around me in a library, for example).  If I’m in too quiet or calm an environment, then my focus wanders.  It seems a little counterintuitve, I suppose.  The best way I can describe it is like this: in an environment where there is a little bit going on around me, my mind grips a little bit tighter onto the task at hand.  It’s almost like a challenge to my brain to have a little bit of noise in the background.  If there’s too much, then my brain can’t hold on; if there’s not enough, then my thoughts wander.  Go figure.

But white noise?  Surely not.  It’s still noise, right?

Surprisingly, I found it to be fairly effective.  I’ve set the meter at 30% over SimplyNoise while writing this post, and have just now cut it out.  Instantly, I realized that there are subtle sounds happening all around me that — while I rarely pay attention to them on a day-to-day basis — are kind of annoying: my window A/C unit, my external hard drive humming and clicking, car horns outside on the street, etc.  The white noise covered it all up.

My friend John grew up in West Virginia, and every few months a group of us will head to his family’s house for a weekend out of the city.  The minute we step out of the car, the thing I appreciate most (next to the fresh air) is the silence.  John lives in a valley next to an apple orchard.  The closest neighbors are hundreds of yards away.  No clicking or clanking, no honking or humming — just birds and wind and rain.  As soon as I turned off the white noise a few moments ago, I was reminded of this contrast.  Sometimes it takes a shift in your environment to appreciate or understand it.

Out of curiosity, I pose this question to you: do you work better in quiet environments, or when there are things/noises happening around you? Does your current work/study environment match that tendency?  Have you always worked better that way, or has it evolved (out of choice or out of necessity)?  How much does your focus and productivity suffer when you’re not in that environment?  Would (or does) white noise work for you?

Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of Flickr user Nils Geylen.