After a couple of decades exploring and researching sound, there is one dominant message which is ever present, we all inherently know that we existing a world where sound is inescapable, yet it is rarely discussed and if discussed it will usually be in the negative. This issue was one of the central motivators of the ‘Positive Soundscape project’ which I worked on nearly 20 years ago, where there was an attempt to reframe ‘noise’. We seemingly will happily describe a view, a meal, or a holiday in great detail, but without any reference to sound, to think of it, how many activities in life do we talk about focusing on the sound? And yet, if we look carefully, there is a substantial body of material where people do talk about sound, usually in the form of ‘noise’. You’ll find it on the endless scroll of social media.
There are countless Facebook rants about noisy neighbours, yapping dogs, fireworks (in the UK), or X (Twitter) threads complaining about roadworks or construction. There are even Reddit forums where share field recordings and have debates about noise pollution. There is also a rising trend of Instagram posts blending field recordings, field notes, images, and audio snippets. These digital space are then more than just platforms for casual comment: they are becoming living archives of how people perceive, endure, cherish and make sense of sound in everyday life.
What People Say When Nobody is Asking
One of the key advantages of social media is that people often speak without the weight of research frameworks or survey questions, and outside of academic bias and hegemony. There is no interviewer to want to please by saying ‘the right’ thing, no complex forms to complete. The results are reactions that are often raw, unfiltered, and I would argue deeply revealing of our attitudes towards sounds.
It is in these online communities, that we can see collective and community concerns take shape, where the stresses of noise pollution, the yearning for quiet spaces, the pleasure of birdsong, or the fascination with sound design or new/old recording technologies emerge into the concious. Of course, the majority of the discourse has a negative tone (i.e noise), where forums and groups (especially local community groups on Facebook) are dominated by complaints about neighbours, traffic, dogs, fireworks, TVs or aircraft. But in the mix, there are also expressions of wonder, curiosity, and inspiration, in partiuclar in relation to field recording and sound design groups.
Keywords, Patterns, and Shifts in the Soundscape
It is by tracing hashtags and keywords like soundscape, noise pollution, quiet zones, natural sounds, and acoustic environment, we can start to map recurring themes, and the contextual environments. What emerges is not only a shifting cultural diary of listening, but a rich data source of sound to emotion interaction. UK noise complaints about motorbikes (and car exhausts), fireworks, barking dogs and anti-social behaviour demonstrated a range of recurring themes which relate to how a sound event is perceived. There are namely, timing (especially late night), duration, who is making the sound, why they are making the sound and volume or ‘loudness’. These people often seem to feel powerless, trapped, or unfairly impacted, with frustration aimed at weak or inconsistent enforcement, although sometimes demonstrating that perhaps someone should sort it out. Social media seem to amplify this outrage and often increase neighbour or community tensions. There are seemingly other underlying issues which include perceived rule-breaking, “sonic ignorance,” and a blurred responsibility between individuals, councils, and police, all of which results in prompting calls for mitigation and clearer accountability.
Thinking of the Covid pandemic, there are two years of data which left audible and sound perception traces online. Through out the Lockdowns’ there were quietened city centres, a reamplification of natural sound, weather, and the ability to hear distant movement often masked by traffic or industry. There was a trend of social feeds becaming filled with reflections on quietness and rediscovered soundscapes, or the lone musician playing to a locked in community from a balcony. It was noticable that as restrictions eased, complaints about noise became more prevalent again back. That is not to say that these times were some sonic nirvana, as not only did the silence induce fear in many, the lockdown nature amplified issues of neighbour noise. Yet these shifts don’t just tell us what people are hearing, they tell us how sound merges into larger patterns of cultural and environmental change.
Of course it is A Method with Limits
Of course, studying sound through social media is not without problems. Who posts, and who stays silent? Whose voices are amplified, and whose are absent? Online posts vary wildly in depth and clarity and even their basis in reality with the amount of bots making posts online. And of course there are serious ethical questions too: people rarely expect their casual comments or creative posts to be taken and put into research (although perhaps we are all perhaps fine with this data being mined by big tech companies to steal our attention..that is another post!).
Any research in these social spaces must then be careful, respectful, and transparent, remembering that behind most comments is a lived experience (bots and trolls aside), not just a quantitative data point.As Byung-Chul Han puts it, an rush towards a “transparency society” also risks turning every fragment of our lives into raw material for analysis and capitalisation, and a loss of privacy, autonomy and ultimately freedom.
What We Can Learn?
However, despite these concerns, I really believe that exploring how sound is discussed online has immesnse value and can begin to further reveals the emotional and psychological weight sound carries, far beyond the focus group or interview. It can show how cultural, social, political, personal differences shape our listening and uncovers how communities rally together or tear apart over sonic concerns; albeit it’s residents campaigning against fireworks or professional and hobbyists trading tips on field recording methods.
Philosophically, these conversations serve to remind us that sonic environments are not simply just fixed backdrops, but they are living assemblages, a flux of shifting folds of perception and place, all interconnected into our identities and shared realities of existing, and through these cultural expressions we get reflections of the tensions between the personal and the collective presence. For example, a complaint about a neighbour’s music can be an individual irritation, a loss of agency and control, a power struggle and a consideration of the broader issues of space, class, culture, and community, amongst other things.
Towards a Practice of Listening
Studying sound through the noise and BS of social media is not simply about analysis, correlations and pie charts. It’s about recognising that people are already making sense of their sonic environments, consciously and sub consciously, often through the media of fleeting, throwaway, unguarded posts. If we pay attention, we might start to understand how the question, ‘a soundscape for whom?’ becomes the more prevalent question in soundscape studies, where we can further begin to see (hear) the connections between community, individualism, wellbeing, identity, and place.
We need to treat these fragments of data not just as background chatter but as conversations (and perhaps cries for help) which are worth listening to, and engaging with. The chats serve to remind us that sound has the power in the real world, outside of the gates of academia and industry to unsettle, to connect, and to destroy and rebuild the everyday. And in the act of us listening, be it online or off, we may find new and authentic ways to understand how sound shapes social life today.