Why people cannot stand silence?

Why some people can't stand silence? I been talking to a friend lately regarding this phenomenon and I learned that she can't stand being alone with her thoughts. It's not only her, a lot of other people need to have some sort of "distraction" going on to be comfortable. Other friends also needs some random youtube videos in the background to fall asleep. How do I address this thing without simplifying it with >muh modernity is fuarrrking our brains It really feels toxic, like, it's hard to develop real thoughts if the other one is constantly thinking about something to say to fill the silence. It makes you shallow and miserable. Has anyone noticed or experienced it?

>>51461 >Why some people can't stand silence? Total silence is unnatural and means something is about to happen. If animals suddenly become silent, it means a predator is nearby or that for some unknown reason all animals ran away or died out. Natural environment is never quiet and only recently humans created quiet places. Humans and other animals adapted to detect danger in the process of evolution, associating silence with danger helps survive. There are even traces in culture of this phenomenon, e.g. "silence before the storm" or "it's too silent here, something's wrong" and similar.

>Other friends also needs some random youtube videos in the background to fall asleep. It's because humans are designed to sleep in large groups of people. We need that feeling of having someone else besides us, breathing, to be comfortable enough to fall asleep. As for the "needing distractions," it's because "human beings are social animals" as the cliche goes, and we desire the attention of other people, and to use our own attention on other people. That's what social media, YouTube, soap operas target, that need to be noticed and to have social connection. That instinct is weaponized by companies to get people to spend more money, and to waste away sanity (as screens cannot replace it) so that everyone's a neurotic, weak, unthinking consumer. It's really simple, actually.

>>51464 Make sense from an evolutionary perspective, but still, I would feel really bad for needing youtube for sleeping. How can people stand the mind weakness that it brings? It makes me depressed to think about it.. Especially because I tried to talk about that and no one seems to care.

>>51465 >I would feel really bad for needing youtube for sleeping. Are you autistic? As an autist, I think there are people who need social interactions more, to the point where they can't eat or sleep without hearing human voice. Like people who attend parties, have over 9000 friends and watch TV blankly while eating dinner.

>>51462 >Natural environment is never quiet and only recently humans created quiet places. What a stupid thing to say. The sound of crickets or wind blowing through trees isn't remotely similar to having some electrical contrivance blasting useless information 24/7.

A large part of it is probably habit, and I don't really see why one should be superior over the other.

>>51470 >What a stupid thing to say. Not really, your reading comprehension is failing you. >The sound of crickets or wind blowing through trees isn't remotely similar to having some electrical contrivance blasting useless information 24/7. I never said that, you're making things up. I said exactly what I said - nothing more and nothing less. No place on Earth is quiet but cold/hot deserts and maybe caves.

>>51470 Yes of course, more to the point that is >some electrical contrivance blasting useless information 24/7 Let's be frank. Quite often people would like to hear pleasant things, like music. What's disturbing is how people choosing to fill that void with TVs or radios blabbering worthless bullshit non-stop. I've been told "calm down" after asking comeone to turn off a TV. Buddy, the best way to start calming down would be to silence the fuarrrking retard TV. Something terrible about TV and radio programming is that how its infinitely crammed with unending stupid noise. Ultimately what bothers me about this topic is people assuming TV noise has some crucial role at all. I disagree, its all worthless from beginning to end. If someone lacks the minor determination to watch and pay attention to a particular show, well please turn the fuarrrking retard-box off.

It ironically is a way to create a boundary because silence can be very intimate. People dont want to be silent with you unless they really like you and feel secure enough with themselves as well to not need to try too hard. But it's also just simply because it's socializing.

yeah, i know this. i always find strange when people put loud music on their headphones to make something else, like studying or chatting in group chats, instead of play it on a comfortable volume and concentrating on the music - that i honestly think it is better -. i have something similar with the dark. this scene is very common: i am having dinner in the dark, and someone of my family turn on the light just to put the plate on the sink, or just to take something on the fridge - that already has light -. i started my hate for the light when i used to turn the lights of to save energy. now i just do not understand why people have to do everything with the lights on.

>>51471 Yes it is an habit but it's a nasty one. I know this sounds super edgy, but I'm just sick to interact with people that can't stay in silence for a fuarrrking minute without feeling bad, It's a constant and useless mental stuggle. At least put some music on instead of watching ads on tv ffs

Tbf it's more than just a product of our modern existence. I prefer silence and actually need it to do math or programming. My mom prefers noise and always has a TV on in whatever room she's in. The difference? She grew up w/ the noise of 6 siblings. I am an only child. My aunt and cousin are the same way. One time my aunt visited my cousin at her house. My aunt was going around turning every fuarrrking thing on and my cousin was right behind her turning them back off. My cousin prefers silence, especially when feeding the babies. Again the difference was their childhood environments. It's not as simple as just spyphones. To the credit of >>51462, if someone likes to put on white noise videos on youtube or put a fan on, that makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. But a let's play or QVC...no.

>>51472 >Natural environment is never quiet and only recently humans created quiet places. >I said exactly what I said - nothing more and nothing less. >No place on Earth is quiet but quiet places

>>51461 > she can't stand being alone with her thoughts Because then she would start to develop empathy. There has been some kind of research lately that shows that the development of empathy is directly tied to moments of boredom. That's why all genZ people are psychopaths, because they are never bored.

This was posted on hacker news yesterday. It's moreso about how it relates to productivity, but it might answer OP's question to a degree. https://ekin.substack.com/p/noise

>>51461 I suspect it's because they don't like to be alone with their thoughts. There are more and more ways to entertain ourselves than ever now, so many people entertain themselves and never learn to be alone with their thoughts. I feel bad for the children allowed to grow up with iPads and Alexa, they've always had a way to escape themselves and be entertained, instead of entertaining themselves in thought. I think most everyone has an innate capacity for introspection, but some people never develop it, and instead of thinking and reflecting they transmit what has been given to them.