I also think most public/social events have the volume turned up way too far. I went to disney world recently and even after 20 years of military service around loud jet engines and gunfire, I found even the attractions for little kids were way too loud. My 3.5 yr old boy had his hands over his ears in almost every attraction except for the it's a small world ride. Every single other attraction/show was loud enough to hurt his ears even though we were going to the attractions intended at the youngest kids.
I think lots of kids who aren't looking forward to some sort of career and who have parents who don't think about such things end up with damaged hearing well before they turn 20. Either that, or 80% of the population is simply so dim witted that they don't notice that the sound is loud enought to cause hearing damage.
Then again, we don't sit around listening to loud TV all day in our household, so we don't habitually tune out or ignore high volume noise...
