Silence is turning into a luxury product
- Why it's worse than it used to be 🏗️
Design killed the silence. Concrete, glass, bare tables, open kitchens. Minimalist interiors removed everything that absorbs sound: carpets, curtains, tablecloths, soft seating. The room became a drum 🥁.
Lombard effect. In noise, people raise their voices automatically. So the room gets louder, everyone talks louder, the room gets louder again. Noise feeds itself 🔁 One loud table can escalate a whole café in minutes.
- Noise is a business tool, often used against the customer 🎛️
Milliman (1982): slower music in a supermarket made people walk slower and spend more
North, Hargreaves & McKendrick (1999): French music in a store's wine section, French wine outsold German. German music, the reverse 🍷 Shoppers denied the music affected them
Guéguen et al. (2008): louder music in bars, people drank faster 🍺
Yan & Dando, Cornell (2015): loud background noise dulls sweet taste. The chef's work gets partly erased by the speaker 🍰🔇
- The forgotten victims: staff 👷
Customers leave after 30 minutes. Staff sit in it for 8 hours.