Is World Cup Killing Your Experiments (and Your Hearing)?

The World Cup kicked off on Friday, no doubt to a huge decline in international productivity.  As the tournament gains momentum and tv coverage increases, many researchers find themselves asking “How am I going to get any work done this month?!”  Many are also asking, “Am I going to have to watch the entire tournament on mute?!”

Three days into the tournament, the world is learning the auditory joy of the vuvuzela – the lovechild of a kazoo on steroids and a swarm of killer bees.  An April 2010 study by the South African Medical Journal revealed the average sound exposure level during a game to be over 100dB, with peak levels averaging 140dB.

According to the NIH’s National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), regular exposure of more than 1 minute to sounds over 100dB risks permanent hearing loss.  Here are a few more familiar noises to put the vuvuzela in perspective:

• 80 dB Garbage disposal
• 90 dB Lawnmower
• 103 dB Jet flyover at 100 feet
• 110 dB Jackhammer
• 120 dB Thunderclap
• 130 dB Shotgun firing, Jet takeoff

So next time you flip on a game, fire up your lawnmower and move it into your living room for a taste of the live action.  No wonder players and fans are having trouble sleeping after games (and we don’t just mean Robert Green…).

According to FIFA, the 2006 Italy vs. France final drew over 715 million viewers worldwide.  Benchmark this against the Superbowl, which is watched by roughly 100 million viewers and it explains why some Americans have trouble wrapping their heads around how huge soccer- er, football- is worldwide.

So we’re curious how a month of world-class football that comes around once every four years will affect your labwork.  Unless labs in the Netherlands have tvs, we can expect progress to drop significantly over the next 30 days.  In 2006, the Netherlands had the highest tv ratings of the tournament, with over 56% of the tvs dialed in to watch their team defeat Portugal in the round of 16.  That had to slow a few projects down…

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[poll id=”40″]

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What game do you think is a can’t miss in this year’s World Cup?

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