I first became interested in silence over 15 years ago when an overdose of New York City noise got me wondering if and how I could find refuge in its opposite, in absolute quiet—something that was not merely a reduction in or lack of noise, but a vibrant counterpoint to the sounds which we assume define and shape our lives. I wrote a book about silence, and what I found in the process was a dictionary of dangers—from stress-related cardiac problems to a pervasive anxiety—arising from excessive noise in our sound-saturated society.

In contrast, locating and living in a relative quiet seemed to offer only upside: benefits such as better cardiac health as well as personal calm, a reduction in angst; a deeper understanding of the fact that silence and other voids, like the space between notes, are just as important in shaping our words and images as are noisy assertions of busy-ness and action.

In the years since the book came out, it seems more and more people have come to appreciate the benefits of silence and of those who purvey it: For example, when I was researching the book, I found only two sensory-deprivation tanks (in which total silence reigns) in the New York area; 15 years later, an online search reveals dozens. Whole industries now focus on noise reduction: businesses that sell acoustic insulation earned over $16 billion last year, and in 2025 the active-noise-canceling headphone industry was worth almost $21 billion.

But is there a downside to silence? I came to this question sideways, through the interest of a staunchly conservative British newspaper that wanted to interview me on the subject; through another publication also, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which devoted an article to the eerie silence featured at the end of four feature films about nuclear holocaust.

I should be clear: In societies dominated by the endless, unchallenged growth of industrial and service industries, the noise these inevitably generate tends to cause harm. By way of example, one in three Americans is exposed to noise sufficient to cause health risks. By the same token, seeking silence logically helps to reduce those risks. But in........

© Psychology Today