The Ringtone Menace: Using “No Cell Phone” Signs to Keep the Peace

Our minds are accustomed to the day-to-day sounds of human jibber-jabber and machines buzzing in the background, but a sudden loud noise can certainly have you spitting out your coffee. Even if, you know, you weren’t drinking any. It’s like magic.

Ever sit in a library or theater and curse the person whose infuriating ringtone interrupts the quiet? Whether Jay-Z or Beethoven, ringtones are never welcome and, without fail, always seem to interrupt the most awkward of silences.

A quick Google search on “download ringtones” will give you a gigantic figure of 79,400,000 results. In other words, cell phones (and ring tones) are popular. Gone re the days when ringtones were simply beeps or chiming bells; now every phone — and even every phone call — can be personalized with thousands of ringtones. Unfortunately, one person’s favorite song can be another’s bane of existence. Studies have shown that unexpected exposure to snippets of song (read, ringtones) can negatively and permanently impact the attention span. That is, continuous interruption via ringtone can affect concentration and productivity. Take libraries, for example: an extensive study on the distracting effects of a ringing cell phone conducted by Jill Shelton of the University of St. Louis found that “In any setting where people are trying to acquire knowledge and trying to retain that information in some way, a distraction that may just seem like a common annoyance to people may have a really disruptive effect on their later retention of that information.” Normally, quiet work areas contain sounds in the 40 to 50 decibel range. Ringtones upset that auditory consistency, interrupting a typical range to produce sounds that are between 60 and 80 decibels. Says Shelton, “Many of us consider a cell phone ringing in a public place to be an annoying disruption, but this study confirms that these nuisance noises also have real-life impacts. These seemingly innocuous events are not only a distraction, but they have a real influence on learning.”

Your key for optimal sound levels in different working environments is:

• Quiet Office – 40 dB
• Library – 40 dB
• Quiet Residential Area – 40 dB
• Large Office – 50 dB
• Freeway Traffic – 70 dB

Curbing the ringtone menace thus becomes imperative for libraries and businesses alike. “No Cell Phone” signs, “Quiet Please” signs, and “Keep Phones on Silent” signs help maintain peace in the work zone by effectively communicating the institution’s phone policy.

Ringtones: How loud is too loud?

Noise limits for ringtones vary with the distance from phone to ear. Studies found that ringtones average 60 decibels from five meters away. At one meter away, phones ring at 76 decibels, and the sound intensity can rise up to 128 decibels when a mobile phone is placed beside the ear! And these numbers only get worse with more phones: two ringing phones, for example, can produce 80 decibels of sound from only meter away. In other words, ringtones can be both annoying and detrimental, but signs will hopefully make things a bit better.

Via ReidSource.com

Accepted standards of continuous exposure to noise

Via DangerousDecibels.org

– Z. Miller, A. Li, V. Makharia, and R. Fogel

Related Links:

See detailed sound levels for occupational, military, non-occupational environments here.
You can purchase professionally made No Cell Phone Signs here, at SmartSign.com.