I never understood how people thrive on noisy environments. They can work, enjoy, and even relax in places full of loud music, shouting, and constant noise.

I hate noise and need silence to relax, concentrate, and work.

I'd have to disagree about the benefits of museums being completely silent.

As a child I was dragged around to a fair number of art museums, and I use a negative descriptor because I distinctly remember disliking it, mostly because of the silence. To me it felt like going to church, and in some ways it put me off of art early on. Felt elitist, which I picked up on even as a child.

Likewise, on a recent trip with a friend we commented on bones at the natural history museum and chatted about the graffiti art exhibit at another museum (both of which were not frowned upon at the museums we visited), and it made it much more memorable and enjoyable.

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Now on to libraries... yeah it's an absolute travesty of the author experienced what I did. People in loud zoom calls treating the computer room like a co-working space. The worst part is that (I went to a good half a dozen dozen libraries last year) the librarians were obnoxiously loud! They would contactly gossip, and have extremely loud conversations with regulars/friends that you could hear throughout the library!

I like the idea of "a chain of hermitages", where adults can chill out, but it sounds like the opposite of what we have for free, the right to compete with each other to avoid spending any time in our chain of prisons.