“It was louder than I would have on my television, and he kept pushing it and pushing it and pushing it and pushing it,” said Smith, 27, who lives in Abilene, Texas . “I don’t want anything to happen to his ears, and I think mine hurt, and I’m far from here.” So, what’s it like when he’s right next door?
The screams, roars and wails of noisy toys are causing parents to take desperate measures, and the situation is about to get worse, as new guidelines take effect April 20 that allow certain toys, especially push and pull toys, increase volume. From packing tape to cotton wraps to hands-on seminars, parents are finding ways to make toys lighter; A spokesperson for the American Academy of Audiology, contacted for this story, mentioned that his neighbor actually ran over a toy with his car in a last-ditch attempt to silence him.
Somehow the batteries “died or disappeared” from an entire radius of trucks, fire trucks and police cars in Laurie Masino’s Atlantic City home, silencing as by magic the deafening sirens. But there is one toy — the Cocomelon toy microphone, which has an “amplify” button — so irritating that it was banished to the basement, she said.
Masino, a 40-year-old English teacher, said many educational toys now have a volume control, but her boys, ages 5 and 2, automatically set it high and in reality, she can’t tell the difference. As she spoke, a particularly loud owl behind her continued to speak from time to time.
“The toys that will come to life at night, those are the ones that are truly terrifying,” she said.
Most children are naturally drawn to loud noises as the brain learns to predict cause and response, and that’s why they smash a pan or hit a blaring siren over and over again, said Andrew Garner, attending pediatrician. in neuroscience at Case Western Reserve. Cleveland University. The sound usually gets people’s attention, and they like it too, he said.
“From a neuroscience perspective, children are happy when they are able to predict what will happen next,” he said. “You can see it when you play hide and seek: if you do something repeatedly and they know what’s going to happen, they get excited – ooh, I know what’s going to happen, I know what’s going to happen pass !”
He added that as children get older, they may play sounds that they specifically know will annoy their parents.
Toys that make sounds have been around since Thomas Edison’s talking doll in 1887 and gained popularity with Chatty Cathy in 1959, which said “I love you” when a string was pulled. Although it seems like toys are getting louder, they have been for a long time, said Kathy Webb, executive director of the Sight & Hearing Association. The group, which is closing its doors this year, began testing toys in the late 1990s.
“We used a portable sound level meter, but with smartphones now anyone can download an app and test themselves,” she said in an email.
The association has published a list of “noisy toys” through 2021 in an attempt to educate (or warn) parents. Many toys exceed 85 decibels, including the main competitor, Disney Moana Squeeze and Scream HeiHei, which reached 109 decibels up close and 94 decibels 10 inches away.
The group contacted toy manufacturers to work with them on reducing the noise level, but never heard back, she said. The Washington Post attempted to contact Hasbro, which makes Tickle Me Elmo, variations of which have appeared on several of the group’s loudest toy lists, as well as JAKKS Pacific, which makes the screaming HeiHei. Neither responded to requests for comment.
Generally, sound experts say anything above 85 decibels for a long time can be problematic, but that’s based on a 1972 Occupational Safety and Health Administration study of adults, Bopanna Ballachanda said. , president of the American Academy of Audiology. Ballachanda, who has a doctorate in audiological neuroscience, said he would be most comfortable with toys around 70 to 72 decibels.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission works with ASTM International, which tests noise levels of toys, but it was unclear how toys exceeding the decibel limit landed on shelves, and ASTM officials did not were not willing to answer questions during an interview.
In the meantime, parents do what they can to keep the level of screaming and sirens down, which is especially difficult if there isn’t an outside speaker that can be muffled by tape.
That’s why Steve McLaughlin, owner of Iffy Books in Philadelphia, started offering a “toy appeasement workshop” before and after the holiday season. For McLaughlin, who has a 5-year-old daughter, it was a screaming llama that “inspired” him to start the workshop.
“It was a walking llama, it was fluffy and had a leash attached, and there must have been a design oversight because it was so loud it hurt my ears,” he said. “This llama was a problem, and he would move around on top of my closet, and I would see him looking at me.”
In his workshop, McLaughlin demonstrates how to open a toy and add resistance, which reduces noise. Emily Boda, 28, doesn’t have children, but as a mechanical engineer, she was curious about the process and offered to help her neighbors with problem toys during last year’s workshop and this year. Last year she received three noisy toys and was able to silence them all.
This year, Boda received four toys, including a book that made farm noises, an owl that rocked from side to side and a toy video game controller with buttons and switches.
“We only managed to silence two out of four,” she said. “I was surprised at how much harder they were to repair – maybe they were just better made, making them harder to take apart.”
