The value of silence

Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK
·3 min read
Photo collage of a man with a megaphone, a giant hairdryer, a screaming mouth, a TV, a train and some cars, all making noise. The background is a red and green ripple emanating from the megaphone, like soundwaves, with stock small talk phrases written out, such as "so, what do you do?".
Photo collage of a man with a megaphone, a giant hairdryer, a screaming mouth, a TV, a train and some cars, all making noise. The background is a red and green ripple emanating from the megaphone, like soundwaves, with stock small talk phrases written out, such as "so, what do you do?".

Life is "filled with noise" but not at a Finnish hairdresser's that has introduced a "silent service" for customers.

At Kati Hakomeri's salon in Helsinki, customers can ask to avoid "polite chitchat about the weather, weekend plans and future holiday destinations", said The Times, and she "appears to have found a gap in the market because demand for the option in her salon has proved buoyant".

"I'm an introvert myself and I understand how uncomfortable it can be for a client to have to make small talk," she told Helsingin Sanomat. The quiet could prove valuable because in this "cacophonous world", silence is "the window to a wealth of wonders", said the BBC.

'Louder and louder'

If there's "such a thing as a perennial grumble, noisiness might be it", wrote Justin Zorn and Leigh Marz for Vox, but "these days", life is "not just loud", there's "an unprecedented mass proliferation of mental stimulation".

The "trajectory of modern life seems inexorable", including "more cars on the roads, more planes in the skies, more whirring appliances, more buzzing and pinging gadgetry".

There are "louder and more ubiquitous TVs and speakers in public spaces and open-plan offices", and in Europe, an estimated 450 million people, or 65% of the population, live with noise levels that the World Health Organisation regards as hazardous to health.

Also in Europe, 12,000 premature deaths each year are caused by the stress and cardiovascular disease brought on by excess noise, found the UN Environment Programme.

'Prattle sabbatical'

"In an industry (and a world) filled with constant yapping", it's "no surprise" that the silent haircut option has had a "huge take-up", wrote Celia Walden in The Telegraph, because what could be more appealing than a "prattle sabbatical?"

"At its core", interaction with hairdressers, cab drivers and others feels like "filling silence for the sake of it", wrote Helen Coffey in The Independent, because we "believe it is expected of us", though "neither party is invested in the conversation", so its draining to keep up the "charade".

In 2019, Uber offered a "quiet mode" option for some journeys, so if passengers were "not in the mood for a chatty driver", they could "avoid small talk during their ride", said the BBC. Not everyone approved: writing on Twitter, one user said that this suggested that "wealthy people can buy their way out of interacting with the poor, who aren't worthy of their attention".

But more quiet in our lives brings "concrete effects", wrote Michael Harris in the Globe and Mail. He noted that scientists who gave lab mice daily doses of silence found that cells in their brains grew faster, while constant noise "stunted brain growth" and schoolchildren "placed in classrooms by noisy subway tracks had lower reading levels than those who worked on the quieter side of the school".

Perhaps the ultimate value of silence is that it has no economic value. "Silence", wrote Swiss thinker Max Picard, is "the only phenomenon today that is 'useless'", in that "it does not fit into the world of profit and utility; it simply is" and "cannot be exploited".

  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next

Latest Stories

  • Earth’s core has slowed so much it’s moving backward, scientists confirm. Here’s what it could mean

    Scientists say they’ve confirmed Earth’s inner core has been slowing down. Here’s what it could mean — and why the topic has been the subject of fierce debate.

  • 12,000-year-old ritual passed down 500 generations may be world’s oldest

    Deep in an Australian cave, archaeologists have uncovered evidence that an Aboriginal ritual may have been passed down 500 generations and survived 12,000 years.

  • Astronomers Baffled After Zombie Star Remains Start "Glitching"

    Astronomers have long been puzzled by the "heartbeats" of neutron stars, the extremely dense remains of massive stars that erupted in a supernova. While we now know a lot more about their origins, the unusual pulses have led to plenty of theories, including the possibility of an ancient civilization attempting to communicate with us. […]

  • Former IBM scientist helms Shanghai AI Lab after death of SenseTime's Tang Xiao'ou

    Zhou Bowen, an artificial intelligence (AI) scientist formerly with US tech giant IBM and Chinese e-commerce platform operator JD.com, has become the new head of the Shanghai AI Laboratory after the death of its first director Tang Xiao'ou, a leading expert on facial recognition and co-founder of SenseTime Group. Zhou, 47, made his public debut as director of the Shanghai AI Lab on Thursday at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), China's largest AI event featuring prominent speak

  • NASA Astronauts Run Into Cow While Practicing for Lunar Landing

    Moon Fashion In September 2026, NASA is hoping to land the first astronauts on the surface of the Moon in over 50 years as part of its Artemis III mission, a highly ambitious endeavor that will require the space agency to figuratively move a mountain. And preparations are long underway. Most recently, NASA astronauts Kate […]

  • Last season of excavation starts at Roman fort

    Archaeologists say the finds suggest a deliberately planned community was thriving and trading there.

  • YouTuber helps researchers solve the mystery of a 2,000-year-old 'computer'

    The Antikythera mechanism was discovered over 100 years ago. Researchers think they solved the ancient computer's mystery with statistical techniques.

  • Giant Horned Dinosaur Discovered In Ancient Swamps Of Montana

    Giant Horned Dinosaur Discovered In Ancient Swamps Of Montana. A ‘remarkable’ new species of giant horned, plant-eating dinosaur ranks among the largest ever discovered. The Lokiceratops rangiformis, a relative of Triceratops, was identified from a skull unearthed in the ancient swamp ‘badlands’ of Montana, near the USA-Canada border. The dinosaur is notable for several unique features, including two massive blade-like horns on the back of its frill and the absence of a nose horn. Scientists report the skull was longer than any other dinosaur within its group, Centrosaurinae, nearly matching the size of later horned giants. They estimate Lokiceratops measured around 6.7 meters in length and weighed approximately five tonnes. Like other ceratopsian dinosaurs, Lokiceratops had a mouth filled with over 200 teeth. Scientists believe Lokiceratops inhabited the swamps and floodplains along the eastern shore of Laramidia the island continent now comprising the western part of North America, more than 78 million years ago.

  • High-speed hippos can get airborne, says new study

    Hippos can get airborne when moving at high speeds over land, according to a new study.

  • Evidence of Roman villas found in survey

    The survey at the Shropshire site also finds evidence of Roman roads and a WW2 RAF base.

  • Ancient swamp creature with a toilet seat-shaped head was a top predator before the dinosaurs

    With lengthy fangs and a massive skull, a giant salamander-like creature was likely the terror of polar swamps 40 million years before the dinosaurs appeared.

  • These oldest inhabited termite mounds have been active for 34,000 years

    CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Scientists in South Africa have been stunned to discover that termite mounds that are still inhabited in an arid region of the country are more than 30,000 years old, meaning they are the oldest known active termite hills.

  • Live poultry markets may be source of bird flu virus in San Francisco wastewater

    As health officials try to understand how H5N1 got into Bay Area wastewater, they are pointing to live bird markets. But questions remain.

  • Nanoscopic motor proteins in the brain build the physical structures of memory

    New research has revealed the role that kinesin, a nanoscopic motor protein, holds in the brain. It helps build dendritic spines, the physical structures that grow from neurons.

  • Biden's bad week just got worse after he said he was the 'first Black woman to serve with a Black president'

    It comes just days after Biden's debate with former President Donald Trump, which was marked by verbal gaffes and confusing statements.

  • Rod Stewart, 79, rocked by shock divorce news: report

    In a surprising turn of events Rod Stewart has received some shocking divorce news. See details.

  • Trump Throws 4th Of July Fit In 'Disgraceful' New Holiday Tantrum

    Critics called out the former president for a bonkers Independence Day message that barely mentioned the holiday.

  • Large amount of lobster dumped along highway east of North Bay, Ont.: police

    BONFIELD, ONT. — Ontario Provincial Police say they found a large amount of lobster that had been dumped along a highway east of North Bay. Police say they received calls about lobster on the shoulder of Highway 17 in Bonfield on Tuesday. They say it was disposed of "for unknown reasons." Officers are reminding the public that it's illegal to litter or dump items along the highway. They say it can also cause safety issues when it attracts wildlife to the road. Police are asking anyone with infor

  • Pope Excommunicates Trump-Loving Ultra-Conservative

    The Vatican on Friday informed a Donald Trump-supporting archbishop that he is being excommunicated for refusing to recognize Pope Francis' authority after years of outspoken public attacks.Carlo Maria Vigano, an ultra-conservative who served as the Vatican’s diplomat to Washington, D.C. between 2011 and 2016, was formally accused last month of schism, which is one of the most serious offenses in canon law. Schism is “the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the memb

  • Conservatives Routed in Worst Election Result for 200 Years

    LONDON—The Conservatives, the world’s winningest political party, were booted out of power in dramatic style on Thursday after 14 years of chaotic and divisive rule.The Labour Party had secured a landslide victory, ending an era of Conservative rule over Britain that stretches back to 2010; the year that the iPad and Instagram were launched and Lady Gaga wore that meat dress to the MTV music awards.In that time, the Conservatives have cycled through five leaders, each of them dragging the party