Noise pollution has become a growing concern in many urban areas, and it is especially a problem in New York, which is one of the most lively and loudest cities in the world. Measuring the number of 311 noise complaints is very good way to record data on the noise levels in the city. It is interesting to see all the complaints organized by type of noise, time of day and week, and specific areas in the city. Some of the biggest consequences of noise pollution are the health effects on humans. One of the biggest concerns is sleep deprivation, which is clearly shown in this article since noise complaints are high at night when people’s sleep is disturbed. The health effects of noise pollution also include emotional and mental health. The high number of complaints shows that people are emotionally distressed and angered by the loud noises across the city.
However, mapping the noise based on complaints is not the most accurate way of measuring the excessive noises and their impacts across the city. For example, the article says that 37% of noise complaints are regarding loud music and partying, while car/truck horns accounts for 4% and public transit systems don’t even make the list. I definitely agree that noise from partying is a big problem, but I think that there are other noises that are louder and even more common in the city. People can be just as irritated by other noises, but they probably just feel like they have more of a right to complain about partying and loud music, while they might feel like there’s no point in complaining about the cars and transit systems since not much can be done about that. This also has a lot to do with which noises are the most common at night when people are more likely to complain because of sleep deprivation. However, we must remember that noise pollution is also a problem during the daytime, and the noise levels are probably much louder during the day than at night, even though more complaints are recorded at night.
I am also doing my paper on noise pollution, and before I started my research, I knew very little about it. I never used to think about it as a scientific health threat or form of pollution, however, I definitely noticed that the city is very loud. Some people wrote that noise pollution is less obvious than air pollution, but I completely disagree. While I think that many people may be ignorant of the fact that noise is a form of environmental pollution that can harm many species, I still think that everyone notices noise since they can hear it and get annoyed by it. The city needs to make much stricter noise codes to fix the problem, and I truly believe that laws regarding noise can be supported by the people, since it is not just a scientific environmental law that seems irrelevant to humans. Rather it is an issue that everyone gets annoyed by, and its consequences are felt immediately as opposed to in the long run.
