![[images/Why Our Tech Got Silent.webp]] **Creator:** Enrico Tartarotti · **Published:** 2026-01-25 · **Length:** 14:29 · [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rFJutK25VU) > *The untold story of computer sounds, from iconic Windows XP chimes and Mac startup sounds to today's silent interfaces.* (from the video description) Enrico argues that sounds in tech were never decoration: they were a functional part of the metaphors that taught everyday people to use computers. When those metaphors stopped being needed and devices moved into bedrooms and pockets, functional sounds faded, but sound came back louder as branding. Sponsored by **Higgsfield** (Cinema Studio). Written by Enrico Tartarotti; produced by Enrico Tartarotti and Bartek Malinowski; edited by Bartek Malinowski. *Summary written from the auto-generated captions and sampled frames; the video has no chapter markers, so section times below come from the captions. The captions garble the sponsor's name ("Hicksfield") and model names, so names below follow the description and on-screen text where possible.* ## 1) Detailed outline ### [0:00] Where did the sounds go? - Enrico plays familiar tech sounds. They were once a key part of technology, some iconic and some annoying, but none were there by chance. - Today when you turn something on or make a mistake you hear nothing. If tech is trying to be immersive and realistic, why did sound vanish? - His teaser: tech companies discovered sound could be used for something different and more powerful. ### [0:48] The psychology of sound: join versus leave - Thought experiment: building a video-conferencing tool, which of two tones plays when someone joins a call and which when they leave? Almost everyone picks the same answer instantly. The rest of the video explains why. ### [1:10] Sound as part of the GUI metaphor system - Early graphical interfaces had to represent things that used to be text and memorized terminal commands, for millions of people who had never used a computer: icons, windows, a mouse. - Designers used **metaphors**: a folder holds things, the desktop is where your most-used things live. Enrico says the visual metaphors, not fancy screens, were the real revolution. - Sound was a big part of that metaphor system, and it was functional, not just immersive. ### [1:59] Sound because computers were slow and unforgiving - In the '80s and '90s copying files, opening programs and booting took time. His **Windows 98** PC took 3–4 minutes to boot, so the **startup sound** let you walk away and hear when it was ready. - Old systems threw cryptic errors and demanded attention. Today **Figma** shows a small offline nudge and syncs later; a '90s system might show an error like "element DJ24575K wasn't saved correctly because of error 577." - **Order of perception:** you notice an error by its sound first, then the icon (a recognizable symbol and warning colors), and only then read the text. Sound made you deal with alerts faster even if you were already looking at the screen. - Sound also built metaphors: the **crumpling-paper trash sound** says "thrown away" in a language people already understood. ### [3:47] Inventing an auditory language - Not every action has a real-world sound (what does saving a file sound like?), so designers had to invent new sounds. - Our brains already have rules for abstract sounds: across cultures and age groups, people map **pitch to physical space**, high as up and low as down. Enrico says this reflects how the auditory cortex works, not just metaphor. - So "connected" uses ascending tones and "disconnected" descending; success uses harmonious, usually higher notes from the same scale, failure uses clashing, lower notes. - He plays random effects from his own sound pack over a **Google Meet** join and a Mac boot: you've never heard them, but they feel wrong. ### [5:16] Sound-design principles - **Length is the inverse of frequency:** long sounds for rare events like startup, short sounds for frequent actions like key presses. (He promises to explain later why people turn off keyboard sounds.) - **Stacking:** a single simple tone is the audio equivalent of an interface of plain gray boxes. It works but isn't recognizable; layering sounds adds nuance. - The **Windows 95 startup sound**, composed by **Brian Eno**, is long and layered. It was branding for **Microsoft**, but also served to call you back to the computer you'd switched on three minutes earlier. - As sounds spread across apps and devices their meanings reinforced: device connected, meaningless alert, something went wrong, something went really wrong. Visual metaphors taught you how to use the interface; audio metaphors told you what was happening right now. ### [6:44] Then everything went quiet - Computers got quieter and phones are almost always on silent; you'd be annoyed if your phone made sounds as you typed or navigated. - Enrico frames this as the story of how the metaphors that tech was built on became relics. ### [7:06] Sponsor: Higgsfield - Enrico shows a generated clip of a speaker melting, made with **Higgsfield**, to visualize sounds disappearing. - Pitch: instead of one model, Higgsfield gives access to several engines, including **Nano Banana Pro** for 4K stills and **Kling 2.6** for video with synchronized audio (the captions also mention a model heard as "when 2.5"). - **Cinema Studio** generates a still from a text prompt and then a video, letting you pick a professional camera, lens and camera motion; he used it for the anamorphic-style horizontal lens flares in the melting-speaker shot. ### [8:30] The metaphors are dying - Teenagers recognize the **floppy-disk save icon** because save buttons look like that, not because it looks like a floppy disk. The metaphor is dead; the symbol is memorized. - Younger people increasingly don't organize files into folders, because instant search and AI can find things without exact names. - Sound metaphors went the same way: nobody crumples paper anymore, and laptops wake in milliseconds, so a startup chime has nothing to announce. Useful sounds became annoying. ### [9:12] Jensen Harris and the Windows 8 startup sound - **Jensen Harris**, a 15-year Microsoft veteran who led design for **Windows 8**, is credited with killing the Windows startup sound. - Late one night, with his wife and newborn asleep, he wanted to check email on his **MacBook** but couldn't remember whether it was muted; the famous Mac chime would wake everyone, and there was no way to prevent it. - His realization: computers were no longer office machines used in business hours but personal devices used in bedrooms and on couches at 2 a.m. He removed the startup sound from Windows 8, while admitting he felt sad to lose a chance to connect emotionally with users. - **Apple** disabled the Mac startup sound in **2016**. ### [10:18] Phones put everything on silent - The real nail in the coffin was the **phone**. When Enrico was a kid, ringtones were status symbols people paid for and blasted at full volume. Now you rarely hear a ringtone in public. - Short-form videos always have **subtitles** because people watch with the sound off in all kinds of personal situations. - Feedback didn't disappear, it moved: most people turn off **keyboard typing sounds** because **haptic motors** already give feedback. Phones don't play sounds for alert or confirmation dialogs the way desktops did. ### [11:22] The silent-phone paradox - You'd expect silence to mean less interruption and anxiety. Researchers compared people with notification sounds on, vibration only, and fully silent. - The **silent group checked their phones more**: with no feedback you never know whether something happened, so you check compulsively. The uncertainty caused more anxiety than sounds or vibrations did. - Conclusion: sounds didn't vanish because they were stressful, but because computers went from work tools on desks to personal companions in pockets. ### [12:05] Sound comes back as branding - Apple brought the startup chime back in **2020**, which Enrico describes as a vintage sound inspired by '90s Macs. - While functional sounds died, another category got louder: **sogos**, or sound logos. - Through the 2010s interfaces went **flat and minimal**, popularized by **iOS 7**: easy and simple, but boring, predictable and safe, with apps reduced to grayscale rectangles and flat icons. If visuals can't make a brand recognizable, sound can. - Hearing the Mac boot chime tells you someone turned on a Mac, not just a computer. **Duolingo** doesn't need effects for right and wrong answers, but its custom sounds signal to everyone nearby that you're doing Duolingo. - These sounds become memes, trigger nostalgia, or simply become iconic. ### [13:52] Outro - Even simple-looking things hide a huge amount of design, engineering and psychology, and he points to his next video (an end-screen link). ## 2) Things mentioned ### Operating systems, devices and their sounds - **Windows 95** startup sound (composed by Brian Eno) - **Windows 98** (Enrico's old PC with a 3–4 minute boot) - **Windows XP** chimes (named in the description) - **Windows 8** (startup sound removed by Jensen Harris) - **Mac startup chime**: disabled by Apple in 2016, brought back in 2020 - **MacBook** (the laptop in the Jensen Harris story) - **iOS 7** (the flat-design shift) - Smartphones: silent mode, ringtones, haptic motors, keyboard click sounds - Old-school error dialogs and their alert sounds - Trash or recycle-bin crumpling-paper sound ### Apps and services - **Figma** (graceful offline handling and auto-sync) - **Google Meet** (join and leave sounds) - **Duolingo** (branded sound effects) - Short-form video feeds and their always-on subtitles - **Flask** (Enrico's product, from the description) ### Sponsor and AI tools - **Higgsfield** and its **Cinema Studio** (camera, lens and camera-motion controls) - **Nano Banana Pro** (4K still images) - **Kling 2.6** (video with synchronized audio) - A third model the captions render as "when 2.5" (not confirmed) ### Design and psychology concepts - GUI metaphors: icons, windows, folders, the desktop, the floppy-disk save icon (skeuomorphism) - Audio feedback and audio metaphors - Order of perception: sound, then icon, then text - Pitch-to-space mapping (high is up, low is down) and ascending versus descending tones - Consonant versus dissonant notes for success and failure - Length inversely proportional to frequency - Sound stacking and layering - Haptic feedback replacing audio feedback - Notification anxiety and compulsive checking with silent phones - Flat and minimal design - **Sogos** (sound logos) and sonic branding - Search and AI replacing folder organization ## 3) Biographies ### Enrico Tartarotti Italian-born YouTuber, designer and entrepreneur whose channel goes "behind the scenes of the design and psychology and stories behind the tech you use everyday." He builds **Flask**, a video-collaboration tool, and offers one-hour consulting calls. He produces his videos with Bartek Malinowski, who also edited this one. ### Brian Eno English musician, producer and pioneer of ambient music. Microsoft commissioned him to compose the Windows 95 startup sound, which Enrico uses as the example of a long, layered, recognizable system sound. ### Jensen Harris A designer who spent about 15 years at Microsoft and led design for Windows 8 (the video shows his name and photo on screen). Enrico credits him with removing the Windows startup sound after realizing, while trying not to wake his sleeping wife and newborn with a Mac chime, that computers had become personal devices used at all hours. ### Bartek Malinowski Enrico's co-producer, credited as producer and editor of this video.