Reading+Reflection

Video Review  Laura Flahive  9/22  Call # EDUC699

Julian Treasure: Shh! Sound health in 8 steps
== Bibliography article cited: media type="custom" key="7336471" width="320" height="320" align="left" == http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_shh_sound_health_in_8_steps.html__

=Summary of the Article: = Throughout the video Julian Treasure addresses the importance of sound and the abuses caused by society today. More specifically he addresses what reductive listening is verses that of expansive listening. Reductive listening is usually employed by men and its entire purpose is just to listen for certain details, key words, messages and so on, which explains the disconnect that often happens between men and women. Men also tend to avoid eye contact while women speak face to face. Women, on the other hand, use expansive listening which allows them to speak at the same time while still understanding each other and rather than listening for key words, women tend to listen to the entire conversation, enabling them to recount multiple details.

 Julian also explains the importance of listening to good sounds, (i.e. birds, wind and water) rather than the complex sounds of our man-made world. In fact, he explained that in an effort to escape our incredibly busy, noisy world that people have resorted to using headphones, which brings about an entirely new set of problems. Hearing loss as a result of headphone abuse plagues one in 6 US teenagers and 61 percent of college freshman have damaged hearing. To fend off the possibility of raising our kids to be deaf, Treasure suggested that people 1) buy the best earphones they can afford so they don’t have to be turned up so loudly; 2) use ear protectors in noisy situations and; 3) plug your ears and excuse yourself from harmful noise.

=Reaction/Reflection = This video really opened my eyes because it made me realize my recent obsession with my own iPod as an escape from the television, my loud kids, the washing machine...you name it. I’ve even found I’ve been cranking it up when in fact, I should be turning it off and listening to silence. He also talked a lot about designing your own sound-scapes through sound design to make sure you have control of your environment and to make sure that the sounds I’m listening to along with my family are constructive rather than destructive. Oh, I almost forgot, I’m NEVER buying my son an MP3 player because of the unintentional damage he can do to himself. He’s only 7, but so many of his friends are always wired in. It’s more important to teach him to walk away and find silence.