How Loud is Too Loud?

Anybody who is a parent has probably told their kids to turn the TV down or to turn the music down.  Usually, it's because we, as parents, are annoyed by the noise and not necessarily that the noise is too loud and damaging to the ears.  So how do you know how loud too loud is?

The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders website has a set of guidelines to follow to avoid damage to your ears.  For example, exposure to a 110 decibel sound for more than 1 minute can cause permanent hearing loss.  At 85 decibels prolonged exposure to any noise can cause gradual hearing loss.  So how do you know if a sound has reached this level?  The website above has some great tools to find out!

I recently heard on one of my science podcasts that anytime you have to raise your voice for someone to hear you (as a result of background noise), the background noise has approached levels that long term exposure could cause gradual hearing loss.  Interesting.  Makes me wonder about potential hearing loss I've experienced whenever I've raised my voice to talk to my wife to overcome the whining and crying from my girls.  LOL!