Research indicates the brain is always working hard to transform words into meaning, even when someone else’s conversation is heard indirectly. The act is almost intuitive. Consequently, overhearing office chatter can cause undue stress for workers because their brains feel divided between two tasks: work and discerning meaning from speech.
When you utilize sound-masking technology, you’re essentially covering up unwanted noise by adding ambient background sounds. (Yes, it’s hard to believe. Who would have thought that adding noise could make a space seem quieter?)
By implementing sounds at the same frequency as human speech, conversations about fifteen feet away become indecipherable. Enterprises can restore peace without moving locations or installing expensive sound-proofing materials.
White noise includes all frequencies at the same energy level and sounds more like static. It has a localized noise similar to a fan. Conversely, sound masking lacks a clearly identifiable sound because it cancels opposing frequencies and can be tuned to be equally distributed throughout your space.
Adding sound masking to a workplace decreases noise distractions, promotes productivity, and boosts speech confidentiality. Other benefits include:
Does your office have poor acoustics? Are the walls in your office conference rooms, where most private conversations take place, too thin? TelWare provides simple, unobtrusive solutions.
The jury has decided. Speech privacy for judges and counsels, jury members, or attorneys and clients is essential.
Have you ever called for customer service and been annoyed by the voices of nearby representatives at the call center? Sound masking can help cover irritating background noises.
With sound masking, your healthcare institution can satisfy HIPAA requirements by making it hard for others to overhear patients’ private medical histories or personal information.
During overnight hospital stays, sound masking will also allow patients to achieve better rest when they don’t hear staff conversations or the beeping of medical machines.
The Gramm-Leach Bliley Act requires financial institutions to guard customers’ financial information and preclude pretexting, or the act of stealing another person’s personal information. Financial firms usually have solid security measures to protect client data on computers, but unfortunately, speech privacy and security is often neglected. A prying ear is all it takes when clients provide a social security number.
When students need to study or take a test, they can be distracted by clicking keyboards, endless coughs, and other distractions. Luckily, sound masking or white noise in libraries, testing centers, and classrooms can blur out individual sounds and allow students to focus on the task at hand.
Do you want your eatery guests to avoid hearing conversations at another table but still hear friends and family? Would you prefer that your customers not hear the repeat complainer at checkout? Sound masking conveniently blurs speech over fifteen feet away.
What do military, security, and government facilities have in common? The answer is the need to protect sensitive information or classified missions. While the Code of Fair Information Practice dictates they need to “take precautions to prevent misuses” of collected data, verbal communication should be just as secure as digital or written data to safeguard our country.