Presumably, they exist to reduce the work of dealing with paper towels.
However, many kinds of hand dryers are ineffective, and they can have their own problems:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/04/12/hand-dryers-suck-bathroom-bacteria-and-blow-them-all-over-your-hands-study-finds/511723002/
My previous dog, a barker (but only during the day and while outside within half a block of another dog), was terrified of the sound of leafblowers, backing up vehicles, and thunder and left the room when I watched sports on TV. Current dog barks hysterically when she hears or smells other dogs but isn’t bothered by other sounds.
Your hearing cells are neurons. They do not regenerate. Period.
Had a great dinner at Palisades. No overhead music blaring, just a techno piano playing. Very old fashioned.
“Restaurants are often designed intentionally to be loud for various reasons.”
Tables turn over more quickly so they make more money.
I lived on 2nd Ave in Manhattan and there was street noise 24/7. I got used to it quickly and slept right through it.
There is always noise in my suburban neighborhood. Blowers, roofers, tree cutters, mowers…but what wakes me up are the crows squawking.
What I hate way more than noise pollution are lawn signs. If I were Queen of the World, I would ban them.
I live in a city with a noise ordinance. Daytime starts at 7 AM. The leafblowers sometimes start at 7:01!
Even worse, there are a couple of institutional buildings nearby that have generators that go off occasionally, unrelated to any power outage. One far exceeds the allowable decibels, but it is for an assisted living place. I’ve written to them to complain but gotten no answer.
I have a friend whose mother lives there. She says the food has gotten much worse over the years so I worry that if they have to spend money to fix the generator, it will make the food even worse.
I went to a Jamba Juice once or twice but the noise of the machines was just too much! (like the calories in their smoothies). That loud grinding every few seconds! I couldn’t stand it.
@greenwitch, is it possible the generator is running to ensure it is in working order? Both of my neighbors across the street have generators on the side of their homes that face my house. I know it must be Tuesday at 1pm because that’s when the first generator comes on, followed by the second one about 10 minutes later. They both run for 20-30 minutes. Every week. My neighbor told me it is to keep the generator in working order, rather than to wait until a storm knocks out power only to find out the generator isn’t working when it doesn’t automatically come on.
It’s annoying but I’ve gotten used to it. It’s really only bothersome in warm weather when my windows are open.
The AL place does test it every Monday morning. But it has also gone off when the power is on for everybody else too. And if our power does go out, we can’t have the windows open or even be inside in the front of our house with the windows closed. Luckily, it’s been a while since that’s happened. It’s about 95 decibels from 8 feet away.
There’s another one on a hospital building in the other direction. It’s within the legal noise limit, but it goes off at odd times now and then. For example, for the last week it has been running for 3-4 out of 7 days, for hours and hours at a time. They roped off parking spots on Thursday on the street, so I hoped someone was coming to fix it but it was running most of Saturday too. The building was empty so I wonder…
The guy in the cubicle behind me at work wears hearing aids – but he doesn’t always wear them when the office gets noisy. Occasionally, I envy him (although not when he’s changing the batteries – a fiddly little job that seems to happen awfully frequently).
There is a juice and salad store near us called Kale me Crazy. Went with a friend and the machines were SO LOUD you absolutely could not have a conversation. Will not go back. Ever.
@HarvestMoon1 I agree about hand blowers, especially the newer, louder ones. They are a hazard to hearing. It does not help them that a recent article pointed out that they tend to blow particles of feces and other nasties all over the place.
In neighborhoods, leaf blowers, lawn movers, barking dogs, subwoofers, and motorcycles are all annoying. Most are intermittent. The barking dogs are the second most annoying, their owners being the first.
I own a dog and I don’t like the barking, either. What bothers me most is when it’s clear (which is most of the time) that the dog is barking because it has been left outside unattended.
When my kids were teens, they liked the mall stores Hollister and Abercrombie (I think). It was terrible to go in their as an adult. Not only couldn’t you hear anything over the blaring music, the lights were so dim you could barely see!
I’m sitting in an airport boarding area next to two young, loud teens, who really are screaming and yelling. The parent is sitting on the other side of them doing a business cell phone call. Not paying a speck of attention to these loud kids.
And it’s an airport with two outlets at each gate area (Austin)…in our concourse…so I’m not much inclined to move.
Hollister was the worst!
I yearn for the good ole days of push mowers! Seriously, in our suburban neighborhood it seems like there is always a lawn being mowed. But the worst is my next door neighbor, who is obsessed about his lawn - he mows after work 3x per week, uses 2 different types of mowers, does cross cuts, then blows the whole thing, so 1.5 hours of noise basically every other day during hours when we are home. And our lots are not wide, just long, so he is basically right next to my house when he is mowing. I told my H this spring that I really have to develop some coping habits so I can enjoy the nice weather and his chronic noise doesn’t stress me out from now through November. And I do worry about his hearing later in life - he doesn’t wear anything in/over his ears to muffle the noise.
The firehouse is just 2 blocks from us, and the sirens don’t bother me at all - totally able to tune them out!
Push mowers cut grass much better as well. We had one for our very first home. Small yard.
One suggestion that my kids have learned to use dealing with shared living for years (including a roommate that constantly liked to play and sing along to show tunes 
): a good pair of noise cancelling headphones like Bose. At least for those hours when the next door neighbor is doing yardwork.
People sell and move due to improperly sited industrial wind turbines and their constant 24/7 low frequency noise. It’s so different from other typical noise–similar to a very loud generator or grain dryer fan running constantly in every area of one’s house.
There’s no escaping the constant pressure change and windows often act as a conduit, making it louder inside the house than outside. It’s like a jet that ramps up, but never takes off.
Dog Barking. There should be no-dog neighborhoods. Keep your dog quiet. Keep it inside if it can’t shut up.
Stereos blasting. No one wants to hear your music.
Earsplitting sound level at movies/church/anywhere.