Why noise pollution in dorms matters.

Wednesday night is Splitchers night. Dozens of students gather in tiny dorm rooms in their respective social groups, drink their hearts out for an hour or two while listening to either trap or pretentious indie pop music, and then walk over as a group to Oberlin’s beloved Dionysus Disco, casually known as the ‘Sco. Life is good: this often feels like the only time of the week that students are able to escape the hellish academic landscape they so often have to live in twenty-four hours a day. At the ‘Sco, one can expect to encounter a large portion of the student body and thus it becomes an excellent space for catching up with friends on top of dancing and having a good time. Thank the heavens this event exists every week right? Unfortunately, Splitchers has some unseen consequences. For many, the cacophony that comes with Wednesday nights at Oberlin is simply unescapable. That is to say that although one may choose not to participate in Splitchers, they often cannot choose to escape it. For weeks, I thought it was just me who went crazy every Wednesday I opted not to go to Splitchers, but upon further discussion with students from within and outside of my social circles, I have come to realize that this is an epidemic. Many of Oberlin’s dorms are simply not built to contain the ridiculous amounts of noise pollution that gets leaked from one room to another and the culture within the dorms often makes students feel comfortable making excessive amounts of sound even after quiet hours have begun.

So why do I pick on Splitchers night when surely Friday and Saturday nights are worse? The answer is in expectations and rules: on weeknights, quiet hours supposedly start strictly at 11pm. Despite this, students often choose not to walk over to the ‘Sco until after this time. The dreams of a 10:30pm bedtime are crushed; almost every week, I deal with loud music, yelling, and general party noise from the quad next door until midnight at the earliest... on a Wednesday. This to me is indicative of the disrespectful and ignorant party culture in certain dorms that dismisses the needs of students who want to sleep early as many choose to ignore the quiet hours that are designed to prevent this problem. Oberlin has a solution however: a quiet house. Zechiel Hall (Noah Hall next year) is designated as Oberlin’s permanent quiet house in which quiet hours are always in effect. Great, right? All I have to do to escape the noise is fill out a quick application and voila I’ll most likely be offered a spot in this hall.

Finally some peace. But here’s the problem: I chose to talk about Wednesday night because it is after all a regular weeknight. I am less inclined to blame students for being loud on a Friday or Saturday night since quiet hours don’t begin until 1am. In fact, I often enjoy having a few friends over for a jolly time celebrating the end of the week on Fridays: quiet hall does not afford me this opportunity. At Oberlin, I am presented with the choice between being permanently quiet or having to deal with unwanted noise at undesirable times. That’s where the inspiration for this project comes from: a desire to help students understand the landscape of noise by dorm. My experience with noise would probably be better had I chosen to live in Talcott Hall which is a traditional dorm but has a quieter culture on the whole. The “Dorms” page is designed to give a sense of which dorms are the noisiest and provide ways of coping in those dorms—I had no choice but to live in Langston this year due to my housing registration slot and I want others who find themselves in this place to know how to cope with the noise rather than just complaining about it all year as I did.

I could continue to talk about the specific issues at Oberlin that enable noise and disrupt student livelihood for a while—but instead I want to dig into the reasons that this actually matters: just what is it that is so destructive about noise pollution in dorms? This isn’t exactly a commonly talked about issue on campus so it can’t be that big a deal right? Unsurprisingly the answer is that it is a big deal. Noise pollution has a dramatic negative effect on both mental and physical health for students. To really dig into this topic, it is important that we understand the concept of anthrophony; the term itself was introduced by soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause (soundscape ecology refers to the study of sound and its relationship with humans and other living organisms and their environments) and refers to “human-generated sounds” whether it be direct “human noise” or noise that is a result of some human-made machine or product. Anthrophony is the source of almost all noise pollution in the world and is also the culprit of noise at Oberlin—but what exactly is ‘noise’? While there is no true and strict definition, ‘noise’ is generally referring to “unwanted sound”, although soundscape ecologist R. Murray Schafer offers alternative definitions that include “unmusical sound”, “any loud sound”, and “disturbance in any signaling system” (referring to an interruption some signal such as static on TV or radio). While these alternative definitions are largely irrelevant to the dorm noise situation, it is important to understand the context and nuances of the word ‘noise’ since this is an issue that goes much further than college dorms and much of what is about to be discussed could be contextualized in a different setting.

A Swedish noise study in 1998 found that employees who worked in an environment where the noise level was “moderate” (think an average residential city street) were affected by headaches and fatigue; scientifically, this is because our brains have to go to extra lengths to filter out this background sound. Anthrophony is pervasive almost everywhere and thus many of us live our daily lives surrounded by unwanted “moderate” background noise without even realizing it is causing us physical symptoms—ut how does this tie into noise in dorms? Well, those who live in a dorm like North know that the noise is pervasive: whether my next-door neighbor is having a conversation, the people in the room below mine are having loud sex, or a lawnmower is vrooming outside my window (a window I have to keep open all year round because of the way heating is regulated by the college), I feel that I am almost constantly picking up on some unwanted sound. Thus, I am someone who spends a large amount of time surrounded by “moderate” background noise as are a great deal of other students. These unfortunately induce the symptoms discussed above for me as well as for others I interviewed. On top of this, noise adds to the high amounts of stress that college students tend to experience—while noise pollution hasn’t been shown to have any connection to the existence of mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression, it does contribute to symptoms that already exist from these illnesses. Furthermore, a 2011 study even found that noise pollution in dorms is one of the top five reasons college students lack sleep and another study suggests that it could be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease as stress hormones are released and affect blood pressure and heart rate. There are too many issues that come with exposure to noise to list here but the bottom line is that students are experiencing issues because of noise in their dorms whether they know it or not.

As soundproofing technology continues to improve, I would hope that Oberlin and colleges everywhere take the initiative to add more levels of sound privacy to the dorms. While I get annoyed at my neighbors for being loud on Wednesday nights and am horrified by the sounds of sexual intercourse from below, I am also frustrated by the lack of effort from the college in both enforcing quiet hours and providing adequate privacy for students in dorms. Students are suffering in lack of sleep and lack of support; there is no campus discussion on this issue and there have been no attempts by anyone to rectify this. This article only begins to touch on the noise issues that I and other students have faced at Oberlin and the complexity of the subject and the issue should not be ignored: anthrophony is prevalent everywhere. The next time you’re having a conversation after the start of quiet hours, think about how loudly you’re speaking—can your neighbors hear you? This is me formally starting the conversation: think and act. Do what you can to make a difference.