The words and phrases below are related to noise and its adverse health effects.
Please contact us with suggestions for other terms that should be included here.
A-Weighting — Filtering sound measurements to focus on the upper mid-range frequencies of the human voice, and de-emphasize other frequencies (especially more disruptive low-frequency bass common to cities), thus actively skewing noise data by making the numbers appear lower.
This mid-range focus originated from occupational health and safety concerns that workplace-induced hearing loss that impeded an employee’s ability to hear their co-workers / supervisors could potentially result in a legal claim for compensation.
Municipal regulations and enforcement procedures often prescribe that sound be measured in A-weighted decibels (see definition below), which are one of three metrics used in the Noise Project’s sound-monitoring initiative (see also “C-weighting”).
“Boy Racers” — A British term for the small cohort of young men who speed around UK cities in cars with modified exhaust systems, making excessive noise and otherwise threatening public safety (see “decibel masculinity” below). Providence’s boy racers tend to be more focused on noise than speed.
C-Weighting — A type of acoustic filtering that retains most sound at the lower (bass) end of the audible spectrum, such as noise from internal-combustion engines in vehicles and gas-fueled leafblowers, and bass-heavy subwoofer speakers, and is close to unweighted measurements (see “Z-weighting”).
Lower-frequency noise travels farther than higher-frequency sound, and more easily penetrates solid materials such as building walls, making it more disruptive — and critical to measure — in dense urban areas. C-weighting differs substantially from A-weighting, which excludes much of the low-frequency range. For a visual comparison, visit the Noise Project’s sound-monitoring initiative.
Decibel (dB) — The most common metric for how loud sound is. Note that decibels are a logarithmic scale, which means they increase at an escalating rate, so that relatively small rises in the number are actually substantially higher volume levels. This differs from a linear scale, which increases at a constant rate, such that double the number is twice as high, triple is three times stronger, etc.
Decibel Masculinity (see also toxic masculinity, machismo) — A performative, anti-social form of male identity in which sound levels are seen as a metric for how “manly” someone is. This is mostly manifested by especially younger men competing (both figuratively and literally) to see who can be louder, usually through the use of a vehicle engine / muffler or over-amplified audio equipment, but also with fireworks and other means, usually in deliberately transgressive ways such as late at night, in close proximity to other people, etc.1 (See also “noise bullying” below.)
Deterrence — The idea that a negative response to a person’s behavior will discourage them from repeating it, and the basis for law enforcement. Thus, fining those who violate city noise ordinances is not intended merely as retroactive punishment, but to prevent future violations by demonstrating their consequences. Conversely, an absence of repercussions encourages further violations by communicating that noise is tolerated or even allowed, and thus people are entitled to generate more of it (see noise impunity / entitlement).
NIMBY — Originally an acronym for “Not in My Backyard,” referring to homeowners who sought to impede public-interest projects such as non-profit social services and affordable housing, on the grounds that government action based on concern for others would lower adjacent property values.
Over decades, however, the terms has largely been co-opted by private, for-profit developers and their allies to try to dismiss or stifle legitimate concerns about excessive noise from commercial venues such as bars, restaurants, and performance spaces (see “noise denialism” below).
The unhealthy noise levels some of these enterprises generate is mostly imposed on people other than those who develop, own, and / or patronize them — and thus are literally not in their backyards. As a result, we‘ve updated NIMBY to stand for “Not Imposed on Me, But on You.”2
Noise — Sound at a volume level that 1) compels people to change their behavior and / or 2) adversely affects them physiologically.3 Exposure to excessive noise can be measured by objective criteria such as decibels, blood-pressure level, or hearing loss, and despite rampant denialism cannot be avoided through psycho-social adaptation (i.e., acculturation, etc). In other words, even people who think they’ve adapted to or are unbothered by noise are still adversely affected by it.
Noise Bullying — Threatening those who object to and take action to curtail exposure to deliberately excessive and unhealthy noise with violence or other forms of retaliation. Some theorize that this is actually the real motivation for transgressive noise: to provoke a confrontation that allows the bully to demonstrate his power. (See also “decibel masculinity” above).
Noise Denialism — Dismissing objections to excessive sound levels by asserting that it does not adversely affect human health (contrary to more than a half century of research) or disturb anyone they identify with. Noise denialists either like or are conditioned to accept noise, support those they believe are responsible for it, and / or believe it has no effects on them or anyone else.
Often accompanied by assertions that they have lived in loud areas longer than those who raise concerns about excessive noise there, and / or that those who object to noise are overly sensitive, unfamiliar with supposedly immutable conditions of urban life, have an ulterior motive such as deliberate gentrification or racism, and other variations of the “who versus what” deflection.
Noise Entitlement — The self-serving belief that one has a “right” to make noise excessive noise based on one’s personal identity, such as being a member of a certain group or the duration of one’s residence in an area (i.e., “We grew up here, so we get to decide how loud it is”), in defiance of local and / or state sound limits. The act of deliberately flouting noise limits is often tied to self-identity, whether it’s performative masculinity or a demonstration of self-defined sectarian privilege.
Noise Equity — The idea that more municipal effort and resources should be expended to reduce excessive and unhealthy noise in areas with recurrently higher noise levels, based on the broader principle that resources are most needed and impactful in places with the greatest lack of recourse. A noise policy that treats loud and quiet areas the same neglects those exposed to more noise.
Noise Impunity — In the absence of enforcement or other consequences for making excessive noise, the idea that someone can be as loud as they want, whenever and wherever they want. In many Providence neighborhoods, a small group of mostly young men has effective noise impunity.
Noise-Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL) — The permanent diminution of aural acuity caused to damage to the inner ear from exposure to excessive sound levels. The gradual hearing loss over time that most people associate with simply getting older is actually due to the cumulative exposure to noise over one’s lifetime: significant noise-induced hearing loss in the elderly is not a natural occurrence.
”Noise Tax” — The cumulative financial expenses that people who are exposed to excessive noise incur in order to avoid or reduce their exposure to it. Examples include higher costs to buy or rent housing in quieter areas, purchase and energy costs associated with being forced to keep windows closed in warm weather (e.g., running air-conditioning, fans, etc) and / or to block out noise, and sound barriers such as headphones / earplugs, heavy curtains, multi-pane windows, air sealing, etc.
Some of the indirect noise taxes include healthcare costs resulting from the adverse effects of excessive noise, lower property valuations in excessively loud areas and higher housing costs in quieter ones, unrealized commercial revenue in loud areas, municipal and state noise enforcement expenditures, and loss of tax revenue from lower real-estate valuations and lost commercial sales.
Sleep Deprivation — Preventing others from getting the minimum amount of sleep that humans need to maintain basic health, generally recognized as six to eight hours per night. Sleep deprivation has also historically been used as a torture technique, because it seriously impairs its victims without leaving any marks or other tangible evidence.
Recent scientific research has tied numerous adverse health effects to a recurrent lack of sufficient sleep, and public-health experts describe the issue as an epidemic and crisis. No one who purports to support community health can ignore excessive noise that disrupts people’s sleep.
Soundscape — In the same way that the landscape is the natural environment one can see at a given location, the soundscape is the totality of sound one hears in a given environment. And just as humans alter landscapes by destroying and / or building things in the natural environment, they change the soundscape by generating and covering / removing sounds. Thus, clear-cutting a forest changes the landscape in that place, and blasting loud music alters the soundscape where it’s played.
Warm-Weather Dread — Anxiety / apprehension many Providence residents begin to feel in February and March as the average temperature begins to increase and they anticipate the commensurate annual rise in noise levels. (Also associated with the “fresh air vs. sleep” dilemma.)
‘Who vs. What’ Deflection — The idea that the group identity of a person engaged in anti-social activity is more determinative of the validity of their actions than the effects such conduct has on others: Who they are is more important than what they do (i.e., sectarianism transcends civic responsibility), including to those who share some or all of the same elements of a given identity.
Woke — 1. verb, past tense. Deprived of necessary rest by external disruptions, especially noise. Usage: “The deliberately loud vehicles woke the sleeping residents.” 2. adjective. Selectively progressive, often in alternation with a form of leftist libertarianism. Usage: ”They were so ‘woke’ that they could rationalize that the deliberately loud vehicles awakened the sleeping residents.”
Z-Weighting — Inaptly acoustic measurements that are actually not weighted (i.e., filtered), and are just “raw” sound-level data. Contrasts with A-weighting and C-weighting (see definitions above).
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1 The “masculine overcompensation thesis” is the idea that men react to perceived threats to their masculinity by making extreme performances of it, such as revving vehicle engines, installing modified mufflers, over-amplified speakers, etc. (See “Overdoing Gender: A Test of the Masculine Overcompensation Thesis,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 118, No. 4)
2 The biggest modern NIMBYs are the commercial property developers and venue owners who almost never live near the excessively loud enterprises they create, and thus aren’t affected by the noise and other adverse conditions they expose neighboring residents to — and then have the cojones to call the latter NIMBYs when thy complain. Other related definitions of NIMBY include “Noise In Most Backyards” and “Noise In My Bedroom Year-round.”
3 The official definition of noise is “unwanted and / or harmful sound.” The first descriptor is certainly accurate in the social sense of noise, but the idea of ‘unwanted‘ introduces a subjective element — i.e., one’s personal feelings in favor or against a particular sound (e.g., music one doesn’t like) — whether or not it’s excessively loud. This opens the door to unresolvable disputes about who wants to hear it and who doesn’t. The word “harmful” is a far more useful determinant of noise, as it relies on measurable sound levels and discernible physiological effects, such as high blood-pressure, cortisol levels, etc.