Friday, October 7, 2011

The noise of a sick society

A few months ago some idiot in the corporate hierarchy at 7-Eleven decided that the chain of convenience stores needed to be equipped with large ceiling-mounted TVs. These TVs emit what is best described as irritating noise. They are not effective advertising tools. They do not enhance the customer "experience." They make it worse.

It is impossible to walk into most public spaces in the U.S. and not be met with programmed noise. I once spent an hour in Logan Airport waiting for a flight. I wanted to read but I couldn't because there was a TV on the wall telling me over and over what a great place Boston is. I wanted to rip the damn thing out and stomp on it while screaming: "Boston would be a much nicer place if you would shut the **** up." Many (not all) restaurants have noise coming out of the ceilings. Grocery stores have muzak interrupted by annoying ads and supposedly helpful announcements about how to pick out ripe pears, how to eat more healthily, and heaven knows what else. It shouldn't be necessary to buy a smart phone and an earpiece to block this out. It shouldn't exist in the first place.

When the Occupy Wall Street movement gets around to formulating a list of demands, one that should be on it is: End commercial noise in public places and business establishments. I for one am ******* tired of it.

P.s. Of course there are far more important issues but there are plenty of other people writing about them.

1 comment:

LFC said...

On second thought the thing at Logan might have been a sound system, not a TV. Anyway, the point stands.