Noise damage: it worsens sleep and blood pressure, and increases cardiovascular disease.

From car horns to music blasting. Everywhere. Noise besieges us. And the risks are increasing, not just for our eardrums.

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noise damage

Noise damage: when we talk about sonic civilization , we should start by reversing the meaning of the title. We are in a phase of growing sonic incivility . More or less everywhere, starting from our cities, and in general from places of community life, through public places (from bars to nightclubs), shops (when buying a pair of sneakers, in some cases you have to cover your ears because of the blaring music), and right up to our homes.

It goes without saying that audible incivility causes a lot of damage. It's an absolute waste of primary and intangible goods, such as health —in this case, hearing —and the pleasure of a conversation , a dialogue , a city stroll without being inundated by car horns, for example. Yes, car horns. In New York, they've taken a very hard line. If you, as a driver or motorcyclist, dare to honk your horn without a valid reason (you need to report an emergency, or you're rushing to the hospital with an injured person on board), you have a very good chance of paying a not-so-light fine. A whopping $350 in cash. In Italy, and why are we telling ourselves this?, the horn is frequently used like a club. And it's usually accompanied by a few shouts and insults, aimed at some poor devil who had the terrible idea of ​​crossing the street at a pedestrian crossing.

Noise damage in the city

In Europe, chronic exposure to noise, according to a report in Harvard Magazine Medicine, disrupts the sleep of six and a half million people and contributes to 48 new cases of heart disease each year. But the latest health risk linked to urban noise, highlighted by scientific research, concerns increased blood pressure . A study by Peking University analyzed 240 people between the ages of 40 and 60, demonstrating a link between urban noise (from horns to ambulances) and increased blood pressure. Reducing noise pollution by just five decibels would reduce hypertension by 1,4 percent and vascular disease by 1,8 percent.

Sound incivility

But where does the tumultuous growth of sonic incivility lie? Always in the same, most insidious place: in the technological boom , in our electronic hearing aids, and in the way—sometimes senseless in terms of the noise we cause to ourselves and others—we use these marvelous devices.

One in ten Italians has hearing problems (according to a highly authoritative source, Eurotrack), and the health crisis continues to grow as people age: one in four young people between the ages of 15 and 24 no longer hear well and have entered the infernal circle of people, both men and women, at risk of deafness. Noise pollution , this is what it is, produced by smartphones, cell phones, MP3 players, tablets—and we could go on with a long list of other objects—is truly a snake. It slithers everywhere. It ranges from the rude person who speaks loudly, on the train or in any public place, to the rude person who, in order to watch their video on Instagram or YouTube, forgets that other people usually exist in life. And not all of us are interested in the rude person's video or his performances on Instagram.

Then there's the personal and self-destructive noise effect, due to the signaling of high-tech sonic civilization . The cell phone alarm (and here the musical variables are infinite), the loud text message alert, the catchphrase of WhatsApp voice , the latest news, usually catastrophic, splashed directly on the front page of the cell phone since, as you know, print media is supposedly being archived.

READ MORE: Silence, please, this is how Finland promotes tourism. And it reminds us of the health risks of excessive noise.

Another link in this chain of noisy horrors, with its attendant waste of health, can be captured by a Supreme Court-level source on science, medicine, and lifestyle: the Veronesi Foundation . In a text written with great conciseness and expertise by Daniele Banfi, you can read some shocking statistics. In the European Union, so we're talking about Italy, ten million adolescents and young people are at risk of deafness simply because of the unfortunate way they use headphones, earphones, and earbuds. On the other hand, we might add, 80 percent of teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17 listen to music, any music, on iPhones and MP3 players: so let's not even dream for a second of improving our environmental sustainability by telling kids to go back to the record player, as some people occasionally try to say. With their heads out of touch with reality.

As usual, there are a plethora of prohibitions and regulations designed to discourage the sonic incivility of music played too loudly and too consistently. Some rules are truly empty words, others are routinely disregarded. The battle between civility and the incivility of noise —in this case, sound—is played out around the decibel risk threshold. If you exceed it, and consistently, you'll hurt yourself. Simple, right? There's even an unwritten, yet scientifically sound, law: the law of 60. Music, and we're not talking about dance halls and discos, can be listened to at a volume no higher than 60 decibels, and for no more than 60 minutes a day . One hour out of every 24 hours, which, if you think about it, is more than enough to enjoy the pleasure of music—rock, pop, punk, classical, rap, neomelodic—and go on as long as you like.

In nightclubs, however, before a common-sense formula, there's the law, the law that then translates, or should translate, into financial penalties, temporary closures, and criminal charges. But we, the Non sprecare community, know full well that nightclubs — and we've written this many times—not infrequently represent the modern Wild West, where everyone does what they want. Unfortunately, tragedies occur due to this anarchy and the broken laws in the music industry, whether danced to or listened to, even at insane volumes. The law states that, in a nightclub, the decibel ceiling is 105, and peaks can reach 120 decibels. But ask some of your children and grandchildren, or ask the families of Italian children and young people: how many Italian nightclubs respect these ceilings of sonic civilization reduced to sonic incivility? You run the risk of having a list of names you can count on your fingers.

Damage caused by loud music

So, what should we do? Do we want to prevent children, young people, from enjoying music as mankind has enjoyed itself for centuries, and as we have enjoyed ourselves in previous generations? Impossible and stupid, even if we can occasionally lay down some rules on the matter. Much better, much more convincing, would be, perhaps with the crucial contribution of schools, to clearly explain to children the harms of music listened to at such abnormal volumes, to laugh about it, to remind them that too many people in the past have died from smoking simply because they were unaware of its harmful side effects, which are collateral to the pleasure of inhaling a cigarette. So, together, we can all try to take some healthy and simple precautions to combat noise pollution in general, and the disaster of loud music in particular. Of course, with one caveat: that parents are not even more reckless than their children and not part of some tribe of deafening urban noise.

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