Does a moment of stillness truly sweep through a crowded room exactly 20 minutes after the hour?

Key Insights

It’s a common occurrence: while chatting with a group, suddenly, without warning, everyone falls silent. This quiet moment is often labeled awkward silence, dead air, or a pregnant pause depending on the conversation. Yet some people refer to this mysterious stillness as the silence of "20 minutes after the hour." They believe that, without fail, this hush descends on crowds—whether large gatherings like sporting events—right at 20 minutes past the hour.

Various theories attempt to explain this phenomenon, ranging from the entirely superstitious to the loosely scientific. Let's begin with the superstitions. One belief claims that any sudden silence at exactly 20 minutes past the hour happens because angels are singing, and all human beings, whether consciously or unconsciously, stop to listen to the celestial melody. Another superstition suggests that crowds become silent at 20 minutes after the hour as a lingering remembrance of Abraham Lincoln’s death, which took place at 7:20 on April 15, 1865. There is no evidence to support these ideas, and, in fact, they raise several questions. Why do angels sing at exactly 20 minutes past the hour, or, if they sing constantly, why do we stop to listen only at that precise moment? Why not always? Also, why would a silence today be tied to Lincoln's final moments? Did the people around Lincoln’s deathbed fall silent that morning in 1865? If so, why do crowds today fall silent at 20 minutes past every hour? Why not exactly at 7:20? And why not at 7:20 on April 15?

Others take a more scientific approach to the silence of "20 minutes after the hour." Proponents of the protection postulate propose that humans fall silent to listen for potential danger, much like our prehistoric ancestors did. Once we ascertain that no danger is present, we resume our conversations. This hypothesis is quite plausible and echoes Carl Jung's concept of the collective unconscious, a shared mental framework passed down from ancestral experiences.

Though there is no concrete evidence to support Jung’s theory of a collective unconscious, science has uncovered other intriguing reasons why silence within groups might indeed be valuable.

Communication Within Groups

A specific branch of social science is devoted to the study of group dynamics and collective behavior, where researchers examine different aspects of how groups function. For example, some researchers explore cohesiveness, which refers to the forces that bind individuals together within a group. Others investigate participation, focusing not only on how much each member contributes but also on the style, tone, and approach of their involvement. Additionally, many researchers in the field of collective behavior focus on the communication patterns within groups, studying who speaks, the frequency of their contributions, and the duration of their speech.

While studies have uncovered a lot about crowd behavior, they haven't offered much insight, at least not directly, into the mysterious phenomenon of the silence that occurs at "20 minutes after the hour." There is some indirect evidence that suggests these sudden silences may be rooted more in superstition than in fact. For instance, there's a widespread belief that crowds act in complete unanimity. Unanimity occurs when everyone in a crowd behaves identically. Clark McPhail, the author of "The Myth of the Madding Crowd," argues that such unanimity is rarely observed. According to McPhail's influential work, individuals tend to retain their personal behavior even in the midst of a crowd. If that’s true, it seems unlikely that the silence, requiring complete unanimity, would occur.

Let’s entertain the possibility, just for a moment, that crowds do occasionally fall silent. Now, leaving aside the debate over whether this silence happens precisely at 20 minutes after the hour, we should ask: are there physiological or psychological factors that make silence within a group necessary? Could silence be beneficial for the group as a whole, or for the individuals within it? Science offers some potential insights into these questions.

Let’s begin with a physiological perspective. Over time, researchers have worked to understand how stress affects the physiology of rats. In one experiment, rats were subjected to a buzzer that sounded for six out of every 30 seconds, for seven hours a day, over a period of 35 days. The rats exposed to this noise showed signs of elevated blood pressure and exhibited nervous pacing. In contrast, rats in a quieter environment had lower blood pressure and did not exhibit nervous behaviors.

Now, let’s examine a study conducted by the University of London in 2005, which sought to understand the psychological effects of noise. In this study, 2,800 children from 89 schools were observed. Some schools were near airports, while others were not. The children living near airports, exposed to high levels of aircraft noise, had significantly poorer reading skills compared to their peers in quieter areas. Researchers coined the term "cognitive fatigue" to explain the decline in reading ability, suggesting that the constant noise disrupted the children’s long-term memory and diminished their attention span.

What might these studies indicate about the occurrence of sudden silences? It’s possible that silence within a crowd serves as a protective measure. It could help lower the blood pressure of individuals and alleviate cognitive fatigue. By doing so, it preserves the well-being of each group member, ultimately ensuring the overall health of the group as a whole.