Silence

From endless traffic to nonstop construction, if you live in a busy city, the noise is inescapable. Research has meticulously analyzed 11 key factors to map out the noisiest corners of the United States. From the constant hum of commuter traffic, to population density, to proximity to airports, and construction noise, the study paints a vivid picture of how urban density transforms our environment — and often leaves our ears ringing.

The survey finds nothing beats the racket taking place in the loudest state in the country, New Jersey! New Jersey takes the title thanks to its 1,267 residents packed into every square mile and a mind-boggling 50,374 vehicles traversing every square mile of road each day. Nearly 14,567 flights annually add to the sonic assault.

To put Jersey’s noise level into context, researchers gave the state a noise score of 52.87. That was more than 10 points more than the number two state on the list, Massachusetts (41.31).

Rounding out the top five are Pennsylvania (3rd), Florida (4th), and the tiny state of Rhode Island (5th). At the opposite end of the noise spectrum, other states offer a reprieve from the urban cacophony. Specifically, Alaska ranked as the quietest state in the U.S. (8.02), followed by Minnesota (49th) and Montana (48th). With minimal population density and limited air traffic, these states provide a sanctuary of silence.

While the study provides a fascinating look at noise levels, it also raises important questions about the potential health impacts of constant urban sound. As cities continue to grow and infrastructure expands, the battle against noise pollution becomes increasingly critical.

A viral screenshot recently sparked debate after someone received a text message offering support during a divorce. The message, “I’m so sorry to hear you’re going through such a tough time. It’s very normal to feel what you’re feeling for a while. Love is a hard come down,” struck the recipient as oddly impersonal and “canned.” Suspicion grew when a friend pointed out the straight apostrophes-a hallmark of AI-generated text, such as those produced by ChatGPT.

Since ChatGPT’s 2022 launch, people have increasingly turned to AI for help with emotionally difficult messages-breakups, condolences, even wedding vows. Public reaction is often negative, with critics lamenting the loss of genuine human connection and the rise of awkward, robotic phrasing. The phrase “Love is a hard come down” became emblematic of this disconnect: a human in pain seeking comfort, and receiving what felt like a digital ghostwriter’s response instead.

Why do people turn to AI? Because expressing support during someone’s crisis is notoriously hard. Many struggle to find the right words, sometimes choosing silence (ghosting) over risking an awkward reply. In this context, using ChatGPT at least ensures a response is sent-even if it lacks warmth.

This dilemma is not new. For centuries, people have grappled with what to say in the face of grief or hardship. Google searches like “What to say to someone…with cancer…who is dying” reveal an endless need for guidance. Sitting shiva (sitting with someone in mourning) is not something you can really do in the metaverse. Are you supposed to mute yourself during a Zoom funeral?

Ultimately, the most important rule remains unchanged: Show up. Bring some bagels.

Billy Collins, the former poet Laurette of the United States, was recently asked by The New York Times Book Review, "How has the internet changed your writing?" Collins responded:

The internet asks us to speed up. Poetry invites us to slow down. I write with a pencil and paper, then use the computer only as a fancy typewriter. So, no change really, except in [the internet’s] role as the most persistent distraction in human history.

Possible Preaching Angles:

(1) Distractions; Prayer—Of course there are many other distractions that can keep us from slowing down and being with God. (2) Bible reading and meditation—The Bible also invites us to slow down and listen to God speaking to us.

A cafe in Amsterdam is filled with people on a Sunday afternoon, but there’s not a laptop or cellphone in sight. Those meeting are part of the Offline Club, where a Wi-Fi signal is not needed, whose members check their electronics at the door, grab a coffee and a seat, and pretend like it’s the '90s.

Each meeting starts off with quiet time for reading, crafting, or just relaxing with your beverage. Then it becomes social for people who want to engage with others.

Co-founder of the club, Ilya Kneppelhout said, “The Offline Club is a way for people to detox from their rushed daily lives and ever-connected lives with notifications. And it is people who are unhappy with their social media usage or their phone usage and screen time and want to decrease that and get back to real connection."

It’s a simple concept, but participants say they really look forward to it. “You get to be very present in a way you didn’t come in realizing,” one member said. Kneppelhout added, “It felt a bit like traveling in time and made me feel nostalgic about the way bars and cafes used to be. Because nowadays, those are places we’re only going to with friends and people we already know and spend time doing digital things like work.”

The founders say they think the concept would work well in other cities, too. “We’re getting together with a franchising concept and we hope to have offline detox events in the entire world for people to reconnect.”

Boredom is a universally dreaded feeling. Being bored means wanting to be engaged when you can’t. Boredom is a different experience from the idleness of downtime or relaxation. Being bored means wanting to be engaged when you can’t, which is an uncomfortable feeling.

In one famous experiment, people were asked to sit quietly for 15 minutes in a room with nothing but their own thoughts. They also had the option to hit a button and give themselves an electric shock.

Getting physically shocked is unpleasant, but many people preferred it to the emotional discomfort of boredom. Out of 42 participants, nearly half opted to press the button at least once, even though they had experienced the shock earlier in the study and reported they would pay money to avoid experiencing it again.

Social psychologist Erin Westgate said, “Boredom is sort of an emotional dashboard light that goes off saying, like, ‘Hey, you’re not on track. It is this signal that whatever it is we’re doing either isn’t meaningful to us, or we’re not able to successfully engage with this.”

Boredom plays a valuable role in how people set and achieve goals. It acts as a catalyst by bringing together different parts of our brain — social, cognitive, emotional, or experiential memory. So, when we’re firing on all neurons, we’re at our most imaginative and making connections we otherwise never would have.

So go be bored, and encourage your kids to be bored too. Maybe you’ll find a new and creative “Eureka!” moment in your life, or imagine a great big new future for yourself or the world. Boredom is a worthwhile adventure.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Boredom can play a valuable role in how you set and achieve goals. Use it to motive you to action! 1) Meditation; Prayer - Don’t reach for your smartphone or the streaming device the next time you are forced to wait. Instead, use this time to set your mind on God: Read the Word, pray, meditate on God as revealed in nature. Destress yourself by centering your thoughts on God. 2) Help; Loving others; Service - You can also shift your focus toward others and their needs. Who can you help today?

An article on the website First Things advocates one simple way to improve your prayer life—stop multitasking. David Ousley writes:

Multitasking is not your friend. The whole idea of multitasking as something good is based on the assumption that life is about getting things done. I admit that the world often operates as though this were the case. ... But it is false. Human life, and Christian life, is more about love than about accomplishments.

If we cultivate distractedness, as, for example, by multitasking, then we will bring distractedness to our prayer. If, on the other hand, we cultivate attention, this will bear fruit at the time of prayer. I would suggest therefore that we renounce multitasking, and strive to do one thing at a time, so far as that is possible.

Sociologist Dalton Conley shares a story about backpacking through Europe when he was 18. He writes, “I had no iPhone. ... I couldn't Google. And I was alone.” But according to Conley his long stretches of solitude weren't a bad thing. We all need time to disconnect, cutting the umbilical cord of technology.

He continues, “Time away from our social networks … helps us figure out who we are. ... I'm afraid that with no solitude, we will become less, not more, connected to our friends and families.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Believers should also consider the necessity of solitude and the perils of our over-connected world. Used properly, solitude can connect us with God. Conley's main point needs to be heard—especially in noisy, busy, over-connected churches.

Life for a 19th-century sailor was hard: Months at sea were accompanied by constant danger and deprivation. To make matters worse, mariners saw the same few people all day, every day, in a radically confined space where they were expected to get along and look after one another. On a long voyage, one obnoxious person could make life utterly miserable for everyone.

So, sailors used a tried technique to deal with an offender: the silent treatment. They would ignore him completely for weeks on end. That might sound like an innocuous action to you, but in truth, it was far from it. According to author Otis Ferguson (1944), the silent treatment was “a process so effective in the monotony of ship’s life as to make strong men weep.”

Of course, the silent treatment is a technique used not only by sailors. It can be encountered anytime, anywhere, from home to work. You have almost certainly experienced some form of it. Long-married couples will go for days without speaking. A person will give their oldest friend the cold shoulder. A father who refused to speak with his daughter for 30 years.

Silent-treatment inflictors do it because, as the sailors discovered, it was devastatingly effective in imposing pain on the recipient. So much pain, in fact, that it can leave a person scarred and a relationship in ruins.

Given how destructive the silent treatment is, like physical abuse, it can wreck relationships. According to the Gottman Institute, which conducts research on the success and failure of marriages, the act of cutting off your partner by stonewalling can be a contributory factor to divorce.

Possible Preaching Angle:

You have probably inflicted the silent treatment on someone—two-thirds of us have done so. We use it for two main reasons: The most common one is to punish someone for something they said or did. The next most common is conflict avoidance; you might go silent to avoid a major blow-up. But this is not how God intends for his children to relate to others. God intends for us to humble ourselves, take the first step to reconciliation, and begin a conversation without defensiveness or blaming. “Don’t let the sun go down on your anger” (Eph. 4:26).

If you are heading into Manhattan off the George Washington Bridge, you can't miss the cluster of four 32-story apartment buildings built right over the interstate. 300,000 cars go whizzing underneath the buildings each day. This makes the bridge the nation’s busiest crossing.

Built in 1964, the Apartments were to be a shining monument to efforts in easing New York's chronic housing shortage. But almost immediately, the development was controversial; people worried that the exhaust from the traffic might be a health hazard to the residents.

Researchers began going floor-to-floor, checking on the well-being of school children who lived in the Apartments. Something was definitely going on. The kids living on the lower floors had lower reading scores than the children who lived on the buildings' higher floors. In fact, it was a linear relationship: the lower the floor of the child's apartment, the lower their reading scores.

But wait—further research showed it wasn't the exhaust pollution. It was noise pollution. The children in the lower levels were exposed to exponentially more traffic noise. All day, everyday, the kids heard the endless honking of horns, the screeching of brakes, and the continuous roar of hundreds of thousands of engines zooming by. Kids learned to block out all the sounds of traffic so well that they pretty much started to block out everything (even the good "noise").

None of these kids had hearing problems: all the kids had hearing tests, and they sailed right through. Cornell professor Gary Evans said that the answer is as simple as this: "The kids began to tune the noise out." The kids became too good at blocking noise, they tuned out all noise, including speech.

Trying to remedy the situation, the school installed some sound-absorbent panels at the ceiling. The paneling only reduced the volume by 5 dB. It was still awfully loud. But it was enough of a difference that the following year's preschoolers outperformed their predecessors. Their teachers reported that the kids were speaking in more complete sentences. They understood more of what was being spoken to them, and they were better understood by others.

But even with this research, it took until 2004 for the managers of the apartments to take action and install noise-minimizing double-pane glass windows.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This could be used as a good reminder of how much "good" can get lost in today's cacophony of “noise” of TikTok, social media, commercials, text messages, phone notifications, and the noise surrounding everyday life. We scarcely have any quiet times to meditate on God’s Word and to pray, or have a quiet conversation with a good friend.

Cameron Perrin, a 26-year-old software engineer, talks about his experience with the productivity hack known as "monk mode:"

As a person who can easily fall into procrastination and a lack of focus, I found myself constantly struggling to achieve my goals — and I couldn't afford to be so distracted. Every workday, I would start strong but would soon get derailed by scrolling social media, reading articles, or just aimlessly browsing the Internet. By the time I caught myself, my train of thought would be gone and I'd have to spend five minutes just figuring out where I left off.

Then I came across an article about "monk mode," which is a method for giving your full attention to whatever you are working on for a set period of time. (The article describes “monk mode” as adopting the isolation and self-discipline practices of monks).

I began by committing to two-hour blocks of monk mode at a time. I eliminated as many distractions as I could. I turned off my phone notifications and blocked social-media sites on my laptop since I knew I was spending way too much time on these activities. I calculated I was (wasting) one to two hours a day. And when factoring in the time it would take to refocus and pick up where I left off, it was roughly three hours of time wasted.

To help maximize my results with the technique, I created a strict routine. The night before each workday, I made a list of the tasks I needed to accomplish the next day and set a time frame for how long I would commit to “monk mode.” Then I woke up at 5 a.m., had coffee, read my Bible, and then entered “monk mode” to begin tackling that list.

“Monk mode” changed my life by showing me how powerful my time really is when I'm disciplined and sticking to a routine. By eliminating distractions, I was able to dramatically increase my work productivity and truly enjoy my downtime.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This technique is not only important for a career, but it can also apply to our spiritual life. Distractions can easily divert us when we are trying to read the Bible and pray. Intentionally isolating ourselves from the phone, internet, social media, and other interruptions can help us focus and enhance our time with God.

One icy night in March 2010, 100 marketing experts piled into the Sea Horse Restaurant in Helsinki. They had the modest goal of making a remote and medium-sized country a world-famous tourist destination. The problem was that Finland was known as a rather quiet country, and the Country Brand Delegation had been looking for a national brand that would make some noise.

The experts puzzled over the various strengths of their nation. Here was a country with exceptional teachers, an abundance of wild berries and mushrooms, and a vibrant cultural capital the size of Nashville, Tennessee. These things fell a bit short of a compelling national identity. Someone proposed that perhaps quiet wasn’t such a bad thing. That got them thinking.

A few months later, the delegation issued a slick “Country Brand Report.” It highlighted a host of marketable themes, (but) one key theme was brand new: silence. As the report explained, modern society often seems intolerably loud and busy. “Silence is a resource,” it said. It could be marketed just like clean water or berries. “In the future, people will be prepared to pay for the experience of silence.”

People already do. In a loud world, silence sells. Noise-canceling headphones retail for hundreds of dollars; the cost of some weeklong silent meditation courses can run into the thousands. Finland saw that it was possible to quite literally make something out of nothing.

The next year, the Finnish Tourist Board released a series of photographs of lone figures in the wilderness, with the caption “Silence, Please.” Eva Kiviranta, who manages social media for VisitFinland.com, explains “We decided, instead of saying that it’s really empty and really quiet and nobody is talking about anything here, let’s embrace it and make it a good thing.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

The Bible also emphasizes the need for occasional restful silence in our pursuit of God. Prayer (Luke 5:16), seeking God’s will before making decisions (Luke 6:12), and rest from a busy ministry (Mark 6:31) all led Jesus to model withdrawal to quiet places (Matt. 14:13).

Conventional wisdom says that good things come to those who wait. That axiom rarely applies, however, to the drudgery of domestic air travel as most people go through the modern air travel system. Phil Stringer, however, is not most people.

Stringer travels for work quite often. So, when his early morning flight from Oklahoma City to his hometown of Charlotte experienced a maintenance-related flight delay, he took it in stride, relocating from the gate to a nearby Starbucks.

But then the delays continued, dragging on throughout the day. Eventually he outlasted the staff at the airport Starbucks, who had to kick him out so they could close. When he finally heard the boarding call, however, he was confused.

Stringer said in an interview, "I had thought that everyone had boarded and I was late, because no one was there But [the gate agent] was like, 'No, honey, you're the only one left.'" Everyone else, fed up with the lengthy delays, had sought other options.

The airline, however, could not simply cancel the flight, because the plane and its cargo were needed in Charlotte. So, after being unceremoniously summoned from their nearby hotel, the crew of four flight attendants went through their normal routine, despite having only one passenger. Stringer spent the two-and-a-half-hour flight laughing and joking with them, quite bemused by the novelty of the situation.

He captured his unique scenario with a video and uploaded it to TikTok, where it went viral with over eleven million likes. Stringer said, "We were like, look, we can either be negative about the situation and make a bad situation worse by our attitude. Or we can be positive, lighthearted, and try and make something of this and at least just have fun."

Stringer made some good friends that day, and made plans to see the group of attendants in their home base of Dallas the next time he comes through. He also heard from many people on social media who were encouraged to keep a positive attitude when their plans go awry.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Patience is a virtue precisely because part of the Christian life is waiting patiently on God for outcomes that only God can accomplish or control. When we exhibit patience, we are continually putting trust in God to accomplish the things God has promised.

Music icon Bono, lead singer of the popular band U2, tells the Atlantic magazine that lately God has been leading him to desire silence and listen to Him more. Bono points out that Elijah had to go to the cave to hear God, and God was heard not in the thunder and the wind but in the sound of silence.

All of his life, he has reinvented himself. Now he thinks it may be time to do it again. Bono says, “Music might be a jealous god. It was always the easiest thing for me. I wake up with melodies in my head. But now I feel more like: ‘Shut up and listen. If you want to take it to the next level, you may have to rethink your life.’”

Bono has been grappling with the challenges to his faith since the band first achieved success: "How do you reconcile the humility of faith with the egotism of superstardom, the purity of the Holy Spirit with the material excess of show business, the drive to achieve musical greatness with the posture of surrender to grace?"

His focus once again is to surrender his life: “It’s just out of my reach. I’m getting to the place where I do not have to do, but just be. It’s trying to transcend myself. It’s like my antidote to me. The antidote to me is surrender.”

The writer asks whether Bono can achieve the perfect stillness he craves. It’s hard to know the answer to that. At one point he told me that throughout his whole life, he’s been searching for home, and that lately he has come to realize that home is not a place, but a person. The writer says, “I neglected to ask the follow-up question. Is that person (his wife) Ali? Jesus? Any random soul he happens to be in front of that day? Maybe all of the above.”

The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on our social lives. Time spent with friends went down. Time spent alone went up. According to the Census Bureau’s American Time Use Survey, the amount of time the average American spent with friends was stable, at 6.5 hours per week, between 2010 and 2013. Then, in 2014, time spent with friends began to decline. By 2019, the average American was spending only four hours per week with friends (a sharp, 37 percent decline from five years before). Social media, political polarization, and new technologies all played a role in the drop.

COVID then deepened this trend. In 2021, the average American spent only two hours and 45 minutes a week with close friends (a 58 percent decline relative to 2010-2013).

Similar declines can be seen even when the definition of “friends” is expanded to include neighbors, co-workers, and clients. The average American spent 15 hours per week with this broader group of friends a decade ago, 12 hours per week in 2019 and only 10 hours a week in 2021. On average, Americans did not transfer that lost time to spouses, partners, or children. Instead, they chose to be alone.

We all have an ongoing fear of being ghosted. Ghosting is now so common that it was added in February of 2017 to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. It describes the phenomenon of leaving a relationship by abruptly ending all contact with the other person, and especially electronic contact, like texts, emails, and chats.

It is a biological fact that rejection or being ostracized can make us feel like we don’t belong and to have feelings of low self-worth. Todd Rose writes in his book: “An entire area of our brain (the anterior cingulate cortex) is constantly on the lookout for even the smallest hint of negative judgment.” Rose refers to studies which show, “A wounded heart, it would seem, can hurt just as much as a broken leg.”

What kinds of snubs can cause distress? The author lists hurtful things such as not being greeted on a bus by a stranger, not getting a quick response after sending an email to a friend, or getting the silent treatment from a partner.”

Rose further writes:

It doesn’t take much for us to experience this social pain. Indeed, psychological research suggests that even the mildest snub can cause distress. Our internal sensors are so attuned to rejection that we feel pain even when it is remote and clearly artificial. Cyberostracism, being ignored or excluded online, produces a similar physical and emotional response. Once it’s switched on, our ostracism alarm only appears to have one setting: full blast.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Jesus understands our feelings of rejection since he himself was despised and rejected (Isa. 53:3; John 1:10-11). Jesus has therefore promised that he will never leave us or forsake us (John 14:18, Heb. 13:5), he actively searches for the lost sheep (Matt. 18:22) and helps those who are downcast (Matt. 11:28-29).

Smartphones have changed the way we inhabit public space and more specifically, how we fill our time while waiting. Consequently, day-dreaming, thinking, speculating, observing, and people-watching are diminishing arts. So, what happens when you put down your phone, look up and start noticing?

Though hotly contested, the social, physical, and cognitive effects of our slavish devotion to the smartphone are said to include symptoms and risk factors such as neck problems, limited attention span, interrupted sleep, anti-social behavior, accidents, and other health risks.

Rarely mentioned in this litany of side effects is how phone use has changed the way we inhabit public space and, more specifically, how we fill our time while waiting. Every moment of potential boredom can now be ameliorated or avoided by all manner of tasks, modes of entertainment or other distractions conveniently provided courtesy of our minicomputer.

Some years back, in response to my own smartphone symptoms, I decided to look up from my screen and look around. We constantly use electronic devices to distract ourselves from the tedium associated with waiting. Instead, we could see boredom as an invitation to look up and then look around, to people watch, daydream, or take the time to observe and develop our own [observation of the beauty of the world] beyond hyperlinks and tags.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Make a New Year’s resolution: Don’t reach for your smartphone the next time you are forced to wait. Instead, use this time to set your mind on God: Read the Word, pray, meditate on God as revealed in nature, destress yourself by centering your thoughts on God.

Brazilian soccer star Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior is paid hundreds of thousands of euros every month if he avoids statements of “religious propaganda that could damage the image and unity” of the Paris Saint-Germain Football Club. Neymar, popularly known by his first name, is currently one of the highest-paid soccer players in the world and has been quite outspoken about his faith. He once told reporters, “Life only makes sense when our highest ideal is to serve Christ.”

His current contract, however, includes a clause that pays him more than €540,000 (roughly $630,000) per month to avoid declarations of faith.