[Alexandra Piletska]
Student life here has always been a bit loud, but not in an exciting Brighton-kind of loud: Cambridge is not a party city and shouldn’t try to be. Rather, it is home to a more irritating sort of loud, where doors are slammed early in the morning and tasteless music is played at all hours on very bad speakers. It’s not just Cambridge though. After visiting Leicester University, I can safely conclude that the problem is far worse elsewhere.
While this all may sound like a bit of a whinge that no doubt ages me by a few decades, it does hit upon the much-ignored problem of noise pollution. The reason it is overlooked at university is partly to do with the student culture of today where we are constantly told to “live our life” which means that most conform to the idea that you have to play loud music, talk to as many people as possible and be in the college bar on at least three weekdays, no matter how bad the bar is, otherwise you fail to be a proper student. Thus, noise is not only ignored, it is encouraged.
Similarly, in wider society music technology has developed so far as to let those who wish to, sit on the bus and kindly share their music with everyone else, played loudly on a bad quality mobile phone speaker. Thank god for progress. Sadly in our post-modern society there seems to be no clear code of behaviour or even manners, and people are encouraged to express themselves in any way they like. It is a disturbing fact that today we own 108 mobile phones for every 100 people. Luckily for bus users most of them carry music. Trollope used to write his novels on the train; I very much doubt he would be able to today. It is also interesting to note that Swiss railways do not have automated public announcements and yet, unlike our trains, seem to function perfectly.
Noise pollution is a big problem at home too. While most councils have created a set of guidelines for dealing with this issue, and the government has passed noise controlling legislation, both are considered pretty much useless and therefore rarely used. Instead every year half a million people move home because of noise pollution, which violates our most basic human rights. We are all entitled to quiet and we should not have to move to find it.
While noise pollution from transport is taken seriously and action is taken to manage it, more “minor” cases such as loud music are treated as just a bit of a bother to be put up with. Such examples of noise pollution can lead to stress, headaches, high blood pressure and thus a reduced quality of life which seems absurd in our advanced, advantaged society. Clearly, it is an issue that needs some addressing when half a million people feel disturbed enough to move home despite the uprooting involved.
This is such a problem today that there is even a Noise Abatement Society which “seeks to eradicate unnecessary noise in all its forms to improve the quality of life for all”. Unfortunately the extent of their achievements seems more or less limited to implementing rubber-lidded dustbins.
What lies at the heart of our levels of noise pollution is fundamentally our culture. Today we are less likely to know our neighbours well and therefore don’t mind if they are kept awake. We listen to music as loud as we want because a new band just made the cover of the NME and silence is treated as a lapse or a problem. It is almost as though modern life is so fast paced we are afraid to hear silence because we are so desensitised to noise. Thus silence weighs much heavier upon our ears than any level of noise. In response, we drown out silence with any kind of noise we can find.
Perhaps what we need, as a society, is to move away from trying to prove to ourselves and others that we are, indeed, outgoing, sociable “party animals” and instead embrace our own thoughts, intelligent conversation and true interaction with others. Failing that, we could just try not to bother other people.
While this sentiment is long overdue, it is nevertheless particularly pertinent at the oment as legislation has recently been passed permitting the use of mobile telephones on flights within the European Union. I challenge anyone to sit through a five-hour flight that consists entirely of unwanted, loud insights into the lives of fellow passengers, the ongoing clicking of text messages being composed and the latest Avril Lavigne nonsense on never-ending repeat, and not feel an urge to join the Noise Abatement Society.
