Is There Rising Market For Silence?

The journal Nautilus had an interesting piece about the value of silence.

The article starts out talking about how 100 Finnish marketing experts met to discuss how to promote the country for tourism. Someone half jokingly suggested promoting the silence of the country. The group decided it actually wasn’t a bad idea.

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 wild mushrooms. “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.

In 2011, the Finnish Tourist Board released a series of photographs of lone figures in the wilderness, with the caption “Silence, Please.” An international “country branding” consultant, Simon Anholt, proposed the playful tagline “No talking, but action.” And a Finnish watch company, Rönkkö, launched its own new slogan: “Handmade in Finnish silence.”

The “Silence, Please” campaign has apparently become one of the most popular aspects of the branding effort.

Despite the current theory that an arts experience shouldn’t require participants to be passive receivers in a dark, quiet room, silence is healthy for our mental and physical well-being and may be an asset worth promoting for some arts and cultural entities.

The Nautilus piece mentions research that shows how exposure to noise while we sleep can have emotional and mental impacts that may also manifest into physical problems.   Silence, on the other hand, can have positive impact on our development.

Yet to her great surprise, Kirste found that two hours of silence per day prompted cell development in the hippocampus, the brain region related to the formation of memory, involving the senses. This was deeply puzzling: The total absence of input was having a more pronounced effect than any sort of input tested.

It should be noted that these observations were made with mice, but they are researching the implications for dementia and depression in humans.

There is also mention of a 1997 Washington University study (with humans) that noticed there were interesting increases in some brain activity when subjects were quietly doing nothing that get suppressed when people are engaged in an activity.

Artists of all disciplines have known about the power of empty space and silence in their work. Still, I was surprised to learn of following result that occurred when monitoring the vitals of humans listening to music:

In fact, two-minute silent pauses proved far more relaxing than either “relaxing” music or a longer silence played before the experiment started.

So perhaps concert goers do have cause to be upset at those who clap between movements. It isn’t ruining the composition, the noise from clapping is robbing them of a positive physiological effect!

Many creatives, including one cited in the Nautilus article, are very much aware that silence is often the best method for generating creativity and inspiration.

If the arts community is going to encourage people to become more actively engaged in their own creative expressions, it is probably important that the value of silence not be overlooked. It is easy to forget that when there is so much to say about technique, history, artistic value, monetary worth, personal practice etc., etc.

For those who are seeking to unplug themselves from their regular lives, the opportunity and implied requirement of silence may be the most valuable aspect.

About Joe Patti

I have been writing Butts in the Seats (BitS) on topics of arts and cultural administration since 2004 (yikes!). Given the ever evolving concerns facing the sector, I have yet to exhaust the available subject matter. In addition to BitS, I am a founding contributor to the ArtsHacker (artshacker.com) website where I focus on topics related to boards, law, governance, policy and practice.

I am also an evangelist for the effort to Build Public Will For Arts and Culture being helmed by Arts Midwest and the Metropolitan Group. (http://www.creatingconnection.org/about/)

My most recent role was as Executive Director of the Grand Opera House in Macon, GA.

Among the things I am most proud are having produced an opera in the Hawaiian language and a dance drama about Hawaii's snow goddess Poli'ahu while working as a Theater Manager in Hawaii. Though there are many more highlights than there is space here to list.

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1 thought on “Is There Rising Market For Silence?”

  1. SILENCE is so hard to come by! What a great idea of the finnish marketers. Everywhere I go there is noise: in the office some people are constantly shouting into their phones, the street noise is so unbearable that we had to set up a schedule when we open the window, supermarkets blast music, restaurants blast music (could you please turn down the volume a bit? sorry, not possible, it’s part of our concept), beaches are full of speakers and so I could go on and on.
    SILENCE is the new currency. I full heartedly agree!

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