Look around you in a restaurant and they will be there. Their faces lit by the blue light of a smartphone screen, they scroll with one hand and stab at their food with the other. These mute diners are not eating alone; they sit opposite a companion who is just as engrossed in Twitter. These are not internet-obsessed “millennials”, though, but people who came out for a meal and were unable to hear their own voice above the din.
As far back as in 1998, restaurant critics for the San Francisco Chronicle started carrying decibel meters so that they could rate eateries by noise level. Since then, restaurants have only got noisier. A study published in July by the charity Action on Hearing Loss (AoHL) found that 81 per cent of those surveyed had experienced difficulty holding a conversation while eating out.
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