Jul 22, 2008

It’s not big secret that alcohol is the real money-maker in restaurants. It’s also pretty clear to readers of this blog that restaurants are loud.

Put one and one together and you get “Loud Music in Bars Hastens Drinking”:

The observations took place over three Saturday nights, with the consent of the bar owners who allowed the volume of the bar music — primarily top 40 tunes — to be adjusted randomly (from 72 dB, considered normal, up to 88 dB, considered high) throughout each night.

Finding that higher volumes appeared to egg the men on to drink more and faster, the researchers theorized that louder background sound might be stimulating higher arousal levels among the patrons. They also considered the possibility that louder music might simply make verbal communication less viable, leading to more drinking as a result of less opportunity to interact socially.

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