2023-04-24 18:15:05
We live in an increasingly noisy world, without even being necessarily aware of it. The shutdown of activities, imposed by the different periods of confinement during the health crisis, has made city dwellers aware of the noise that invades us. The big, noisy cities had, for a time, swung into a quieter universe.
Noise is defined as sound assigned a negative value, experienced as a sensory and even physical aggression. Its perception is very subjective, with a cultural, symbolic dimension… We are therefore not equal in the face of this nuisance.
Or, “The brain needs silence to regenerate. It is a basic physiological need. Noise is a nuisance that is not sufficiently taken into account, whereas it is a public health problem”alerted the neuroscientist Michel Le Van Quyen, researcher at Inserm, in our columns in April 2020, in a joint interview with David Le Breton, anthropologist and sociologist.
“The auditory system has been designed, since Neanderthal, as a danger detector and a privileged communication channel for language, but not for noise, peripherals, compressed music concerts”, explains Jean-Luc Puel, director of the Inserm hearing team and professor at the University of Montpellier. By contrast, the absence of noise would be “a new luxury, the ability to find wonder in everyday life”also says the Norwegian explorer Erling Kagge (A few grams of silenceFlammarion, 2016). The philosopher Cynthia Fleury speaks the lack of silence that prevents thinking, silence as a factor of well-being “. Social inequalities also exist in this area, she evokes the notion of “noise for the poor and silence for the rich”.
The perception of noise evolves; 78% of Ile-de-France residents are concerned about it. They place it as the fourth major inconvenience of living in Ile-de-France, after the cost of living, insecurity and pollution. At a level which moreover approaches that of air pollution, according to a survey carried out online by Crédoc for Bruitparif, in November 2021, among 3,000 Ile-de-France residents. “The discomfort experienced varies greatly depending on the context and the origin of the noise. Transport (mainly road traffic) and the neighborhood remain the two main sources of annoyance linked to noise at home, with strong social inequalities in exposure”, observes Fanny Mietlicki, director of Bruitparif, an organization responsible for measuring noise pollution in Ile-de-France. In fact, the Crédoc survey reports that residents are increasingly looking for quiet spaces.
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