Why your brain needs silence

My noise-cancelling headphones are one of my favourite possessions. I wear them almost constantly – to listen to podcasts while squeezed next to strangers on the bus, to audiobooks when I’m cooking, or to music when I need a little boost to get my steps in. My headphones let me escape boredom. But if I spend all my alone time with content piped in through my ears, what am I doing to my brain?

I was struck by this question one day, when I forgot my headphones. It was just a little errand, 20 minutes or so, but the experience of being out there in the world with no visual or audio entertainment, no buffer of any kind, was so jarring that I had to find a bench and sit down to contemplate for a moment.

I was suddenly extremely aware that my brain was receiving no input. I remembered how I’d mocked the social media trend of “raw-dogging” long-haul flights, where people refuse any form of entertainment – sometimes including food and sleep – and instead sit in silence for hours as a kind of mental challenge. Even the more benign and well-meaning #monkmode – where people isolate themselves from distractions in order to focus on a task – and #silentwalk trends on TikTok seemed a little absurd to me. Did we really need to invent new terms for the simple act of putting away our electronic devices?

But sitting on that bench, I felt genuinely flummoxed. For a long time, I realised, the only activity I’d experienced absent of any kind of input was sleep, and maybe showering. I pictured my brain as the spinning beachball of doom, like an old computer straining under too many commands. As I went about my day, the thought stayed with me.

I decided to look into it and, it turns out, we might want to think twice about our headphone habits. Boredom, I discovered, has a very specific function. You don’t have to do nothing for very long before your brain realises it’s been given an opportunity. Let’s daydream! Let’s mull over yesterday, and ponder about the future! Scientists call this the Default Mode Network, which is the brain state that activates when we’re awake but not focused on anything. As we idle, our minds drift and make unexpected connections – a little boredom may be a key ingredient in creativity.

Intrigued, I decided to see what would happen if I spent more time in my Default Mode Network. That weekend, I went for a long walk in the park, my headphones in my bag like a security blanket. Yes, I was doing a #silentwalk, feeling pleased with myself. As the novelty wore off and I made an effort to wear my headphones less in the months that followed, I felt my brain protesting, begging for some light entertainment. But soon, something truly remarkable occurred: I realised I was feeling less tense, my mood lifted, and I was less irritated by interruptions. I’m pretty sure my memory improved, too.

Was this actually happening because I was giving my brain more time to process information, lay down memories and make connections? Or was it just a coincidence?

To find out, I called Matti Vuorre, an assistant professor at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. Vuorre studies human nature in the context of how we use digital technologies, and how it impacts our wellbeing and cognitive functioning. Asked why it can be so difficult to just let our phones be, Vuorre says it’s early days for research in this field: “Humans have a natural tendency towards curiosity. We need to learn in a similar vein as how we have to eat. Once we have the so-called information superhighway in our pockets, resisting may be difficult.” That’s good news, I guess – I’m not jonesing for entertainment because I lack discipline, but because information and novelty are simply irresistible.

What about the impact on our attention spans, though? Vuorre cautions that attention span is very difficult to measure scientifically. “It’s too complicated to quantify at the neural level,” he says. But what we do know is that an increasing number of us are reporting difficulties with sustaining our attention. In a study by the Policy Institute and Centre for Attention Studies at King’s College London in 2022, half of respondents said they sometimes struggled leaving their phones alone when they were supposed to focus. About half also believed that their attention span was poorer than it used to be.

Moreover, respondents were underestimating the problem. They thought they checked their phones 25 times a day, but it was more like 80. And while we might think we’re being more efficient by multi-tasking, research suggests the opposite. What we’re really doing when we think we’re “multi-tasking” is very rapidly switching between tasks, which has a cognitive cost. The myth of multi-tasking was first busted as far back as 1927 by the psychologist Arthur Jersild, and his findings have been repeatedly corroborated by studies showing that it tends to make us a little slower, more prone to error and quicker to tire.

What else might be happening to my brain as it’s constantly flooded by endless content and information? Vuorre says that studying a brain that’s bombarded with stimuli is “not a common experimental setup”, apart from the particular history of military experiments. Loud, repetitive music, for example, has been deployed by the US military to “break” detainees in places like Guantanamo Bay. While it’s absurd to compare the effects of torture to the brain rot that sets in after too much infinite scroll, it’s revealing to learn what happens in this extreme case of sensory overload.

According to New York University research into the use of music in a range of detention camps, published by Cambridge University Press in 2008, loud, repetitive music stops the psychological process of orientation. The brain is constantly working on detecting patterns and making order out of chaos. Being forced to endure hours of “I Love You” by Barney the Dinosaur – a commonly used torture song by the US military – prevents the brain from organising itself. Eventually, it breaks down your ability to make sense of the world.

But I have control over whether, and for how long, I choose to bombard my brain with audio stimuli. Putting things in perspective, we know that every generation freaks out about new media. Not long ago we were extremely worried about video games, and before that, what would happen to kids who watched a lot of television. The initial proliferation of newspapers was maligned for stopping people from talking to each other, and in the 1800s, novels were considered harmful for young women – too many books could inflame passions, spread radical ideas and make the ladies uppity.

Smartphones may be just the newest version of this panic – at least Vuorre seems to think so. “A hundred years from now, some other version of you and me will be having this exact same discussion about some technology that we can’t yet imagine,” he says. “This [conversation] will keep happening.”

But smartphones do appear to represent a seismic shift in our use of technology. They’re the first devices to give us access to nearly limitless content, anywhere and at any time. To have the same experience during my 90s childhood I would have had to carry a Discman, CDs and audiobooks, a pocket radio, a portable TV, newspapers, comic books and art books, a calendar and alarm clock, a set of stationery, a walkie talkie, and I still wouldn’t have half the functions of my smartphone. All of these things existed in the 90s, but because they weren’t in my pocket, there wasn’t the same urge to make use of every moment for productivity and entertainment.

The iPhone wasn’t the first smartphone when it launched in 2007 – we’d had the BlackBerry for five years already – but when the App Store saw the light of day only a year later, the game was changed for ever.

Now, nearly two decades on, people are starting to resist the lure of constant connectivity, going far beyond the #monkmode and #silentwalk lifestyle trends. Increasing numbers are going back to dumbphones, in a deliberate attempt to wean themselves off constant stimuli – so much so that Nokia has started releasing updated versions of its classic brick phones: a new version of the 6310 model came out in 2021, and there’s lots more to choose from. And if you can’t imagine life without map apps and texting, don’t worry – most modern dumbphones have those features. This makes them a good option for kids, and a few early experiments with dumbphone-only policies in schools have shown promise.

It’s an alluring idea, for sure. But whenever I look into getting a dumbphone to free me from temptation, I’m deterred by a desire to retain access to all manner of boring but useful apps, for things like checking train times and accessing event tickets, and the one that plays a gong sound when my meditation time is up. So, for now, I’ve kept my smartphone and my beloved headphones, but I’ve done a cull of my apps and keep a tight grip on the notifications.

Most importantly, I keep my phone out of sight when I want to give my brain a chance to chill. It’s not enough to turn it over on the table and steel yourself. Research published by the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin in 2017 found that simply seeing your phone can be distracting, even if the sound is turned off. As test subjects tried to work with their phones next to them, researchers concluded that the effort of not engaging with something as tempting as your phone became its own source of “brain drain”.

To take advantage of some good recent weather, I started walking the Jubilee Greenway around London, while deliberately keeping my headphones in my bag until I’m back on the train. It’s just me on those walks, and hours of placing one foot in front of another. I have to say, it’s been some of the best time I’ve spent with my brain lately – or should I say, with myself.

This article is from New Humanist’s Summer 2025 issue. Subscribe now.