Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community  

Go Back   Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community > The Academy > Tilted Philosophy


 
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
Old 09-26-2004, 04:52 AM   #1 (permalink)
pinche vato
 
warrrreagl's Avatar
 
Location: backwater, Third World, land of cotton
Can loud sporting events hurt babies' ears?

My brother-in-law insists on taking his 9-month old daughter to SEC football games. The basic problem is that he and his wife have only two tickets and are too lazy to find baby-sitters. All the rest of us believe that one of them should stay home with the baby, but their solution is to buy an extra ticket outside the stadium for the baby and squeeze in.

As a music teacher, I am always concerned about people's hearing, and I feel in my gut that this cannot be good for a baby's ears. SEC games are always monumentally loud.

Does anyone know? Is this bad for a baby's ears?
__________________
Living is easy with eyes closed.
warrrreagl is offline  
Old 09-26-2004, 07:57 AM   #2 (permalink)
Upright
 
Wow- what a lucky baby!

I'm just kidding, but I wouldn't think it's terribly bad for the baby's ears. I don't know for sure, but here's my take. Sure it seems loud, but I've been to some pretty loud events with tens of thousands of people and never felt "uncomfortable". We're pretty tough, and even a baby is going to need some heavy dBs for good periods of time for real, noticeable hearing damage. Unlike concerts or shows like that where people stack amplifiers and fire them at the audience for the express purpose of blowing their minds out, the noise from a game is undirected, ambient, rather low frequency dull roaring. Also, it's not like the baby is exposed to this every day, nor for long periods of time. Most people who suffer noticeable hearing damage/loss are people who put themselves at risk every day. Navy flight crews, people who work in factories/machine shops, etc. At the game, sure it might roar at a touchdown or a big play, but it rolls off fairly quickly. The baby is also going to lose some hearing just as a product of aging as well. You probably didn't even notice, but the frequency response of our ears rolls off over time. Most adults can't hear over ~15k. You could put little earmuffs to help a bit, but I would say just keep pressuring for a babysitter just out of principle (who drags their tiny ones to a football game?).

If you want to be more scientific about it, just get a sound level meter and have them take it to a game. They're not terribly expensive, you could probably borrow one, and it might give you a more accurate idea of just how bad things are. Plus, having *relatively* (assuming you use it correctly) scientific proof makes it all the more fun to rub "I told you so" into the ground.
farcryer is offline  
Old 09-26-2004, 11:36 PM   #3 (permalink)
Psycho
 
DJ Happy's Avatar
 
When we had our baby, the nurses said that any noise that required us to raise our voices in order to be heard was too loud for the baby and was not healthy for it. I don't know how loud SEC games are, but if you have to shout in order to be heard, then it's probably too loud for the baby.

On a separate note, why do they need a ticket for a 9 month old baby? Surely babies should be let in for free? It's not like they'll be sitting on their own seat or anything. Or even enjoying the game.
DJ Happy is offline  
 

Tags
babies, ears, events, hurt, loud, sporting

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On



All times are GMT -8. The time now is 11:56 PM.

Tilted Forum Project

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0 PL2
© 2002-2012 Tilted Forum Project

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360