Apple Hearing Study Identifies National Increase in Noise During Super Bowl
The Apple Hearing Study
This study, a collaboration between the University of Michigan and Apple, aims to
understand how sound exposure affects hearing health. As part of this study, our team
is analyzing the noise levels our volunteer participants are exposed to across America
and identifying events that could be associated with changes in noise levels. For
example, we have already demonstrated that noise levels across the US dropped in 2020
following the lockdowns associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
What We Did
We recently looked at 115,049 participants in the study who have an Apple Watch and
have agreed to share noise levels measured by the Noise app. We wanted to know whether
noise levels among participants were higher during major events, and so we analyzed
noise levels during the past four Super Bowls (2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024). We looked
at average noise levels 6 hours before and 6 hours after the start of the game on
Super Bowl Sunday and compared them to noise levels at the same time on the following
Sunday. We also wondered whether noise levels were higher among Apple Hearing Study
participants who lived in states where the Super Bowl teams were from or the state
where the game was played compared to participants living in other states.
About Noise
As shown in the table below, an increase of 3 decibels represents a doubling of sound
energy, and an increase of 10 decibels represents a 10-fold increase in sound energy.
So, small changes in decibel level represents a big change in how much noise our ears
are exposed to, and those small changes are barely noticeable to us. Also, for reference,
65 decibels is about as loud as a normal conversation, and 70 decibels is about as
loud as a vacuum cleaner.
| Increase in decibels | Increase in sound energy | Increase in how loud it sounds |
| 3 | Twice as much | Barely noticeable |
| 5-6 | Four times as much | Noticeable |
| 10 | Ten times as much | Twice as loud |
What We Found
We found that Super Bowl Sundays were louder than the following Sunday each year.
On average, across the US, we saw about a 1.5 to 3 decibel increase in noise levels
among participants during the past four Super Bowl games compared to levels on the
Sunday following the game. As you can see in the figure below of the average for the
2021 to 2024 Super Bowls, this increase started about 3 hours before the game started
and lasted about 3 hours after the game ended.
The figures below show noise levels for the 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 Super Bowls divided by game and non-game states. The left side of the figures shows the noise levels among Apple Hearing Study participants who lived in game states for each Super Bowl, including the state where the game took place and the home states of each team. The right side of the figures shows the noise levels among Apple Hearing Study participants who lived in non-game states or all remaining states.
In each year, we found that the study participants’ noise levels were higher for those who lived in game states than for those who lived in all other states.
The Bottom Line
We believe this is the first analysis showing that noise levels among people living
across the US increased from a single, brief event. It appears that during the Super
Bowl, noise levels may be up to twice as high as on Sundays following the Super Bowl
and that noise levels in states that played in or hosted the Super Bowl were higher
compared to all other states.
We encourage people to monitor their noise exposure (using the Noise app on Apple Watch or iPhone app, for instance) and to protect their hearing (by wearing earplugs, for instance) when they attend or watch noisy events to ensure that they can have fun safely.