Silence is the absence of intentional sound or purposeful quiet—and for many people it’s unsettling. Research (Koudenburg et al., 2011) in the Netherlands found that it takes only four seconds of silence in conversation for Americans to feel rattled, rejected, or insecure.

Contrast this to another study (Yamada, 2015) that found Japanese people are happy to sit in silence with others for up to 8.2 seconds. This may not be surprising given the Japanese concept of haragei that suggests the most effective type of communication is actually not speaking.

Regardless of where people reside, an alarming trend has emerged—that is, the fear of silence, or what some have called sedatephobia. Sedatephobia originates from the Greek Sedate meaning “silent or sleeping or dead” and Phobos meaning “aversion, fear, or morbid fear.”

A study by Bruce Fell (2012) suggested that digital technology and social media are exacerbating not only people’s intolerance for silence but also their dread of it, in some cases so much so that it results in panic attacks or significant anxiety. “When there is no noise in my room it scares me,” said one of the 580 undergraduate students interviewed. “I began doing this assignment in the library and had to return to my room minutes later to get my iPod as I found the library was so quiet that I couldn’t concentrate properly,” said another.

Human beings have an evolution-driven........

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