Aleks is in search of silence. Isobel Anderson suffers from tinnitus and at its peak felt like she was being tortured, or stalked. But the culprit wasn't an external sound that she could switch off; it was inside her brain. Her mind tuned into the inner electrical currents and motions that we all experience, but hers never fade away. Her neurons had made the connections, and so she couldn't stop hearing the sound. She knew there was no such thing as silence but what she missed was being able to control her sound environment.
Jessica Vitak is a writer who lives in London and uses technology to control her sound environment. She wears noise cancelling headphones to drown out the distractions of the city but she admits it does make her shut down a little.
Dr Helen Lees is an Associate Research fellow at York St John University, and for more than 20 years, she argues that being distracted by our screens means we miss out on silent experience between people, the language of silence spoken.
Dr David Toop argues that if we are using technology as a convenience we do not find the noise a problem but if other people are using it can be an annoyance and through time people have always sought out artificial silence.
Leif Haugen is a Fire watcher who spends six months of a year stationed at Toma lookout, on a mountain in Montana. He says only new fire watchers who are at peace with themselves are able to stick it out as living in silence even in the natural world makes you look in wards at who you really are.
In our digital world has silence become harder to find, or are we looking for it in all the wrong places?
Produced by Kate Bissell.
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