By: Rebecca Capozzi | Staff Writer
When I first heard about the 3rd floor of the library and how it was the “silent floor”, I was really excited. At my high school, the library was very small, and the librarians who were always telling students to be quiet were always the ones that would be talking and laughing as loud as they possibly could. I was excited to finally have a place where I could work in complete silence. Unfortunately, there have been many nights where I have had the complete opposite experience.
According to noisli.com-a site that lets you create your ideal sound environment in order to increase productivity and reduce stress-“the wrong sound environment makes you 66% less productive.” The sound environment that I personally need in order to do my homework at the most productive rate is complete silence. So, even when I hear people on the silent floor whispering, I get completely distracted.
When I was on the 3rd floor with one of my friends, she told me to listen to music so that I would not hear people talking. Although Dr. Masha Godkin, a professor of psychology at Northcentral University, says that “music activates both the left and right brain at the same time, and the activation of both hemispheres can maximize learning and improve memory,” it just isn’t an option for me. Do you know what maximizes my learning and improves my memory? Silence. So while listening to music may block out the noise of people talking, I won’t be as productive.
When you are in an environment with complete silence, your brain has the opportunity to “meditate” which can help you to dig into your deepest thoughts, memories, and ideas. This is what I need in order to produce my best work. If I am trying to work on something and am trying to remember something that my professor said in class, the last thing that will help me is to hear a group of people whispering and trying to giggle quietly. Hearing that will without a doubt make my thinking process 100 times longer than it originally would have been if it was silent.
I am not going to lie, I have found myself being loud on the 3rd floor of the library. But I now know how to avoid that situation.
Here are my tips:
- Do not go to the 3rd floor with your friends. Everything is funnier when you are not supposed to be laughing, causing more laughter.
- Avoid eating foods that have loud wrappers or are crunchy. No one wants to hear someone chewing when everything else is silent.
- Turn your phone on silent. Hearing the constant vibrations of someone’s phone will cause everyone to check their phones, which ultimately leads to spending 30 minutes on Instagram.
Yes, the 3rd floor of McKillop Library is 100% better than the library in my high school that had the same volume level as the cafeteria. However, when I think of silence, I think of the kind of silence that most people cannot stand. This kind of silence might be helpful to you-just as it is to me-when you are doing your work. My logic is is this: The more silent it is, the more you will want to leave, and the more productive you will want to be. Because, in the end, the only thing that we want to do once we enter the library is to leave, right?
