Pardon? What you say? Apparently the earbud touting masses are ruining their hearing, one Justin Bieber song at a time. Because one in five Americans over the age of 12 have hearing loss in at least one ear.
A new study shows that more than 48 million people in the United States can’t hear properly, a leap up from previous estimates that suggested the figure was closer to 21 million.
Even though age obviously plays a role in hearing loss, for those of us who have never known a life without personal music devices the real problem is environmental factors. In other words, if you didn’t know already, jacking your music up too loud on your iPod or going to too many loud gigs ruins your ears.
Speaking to CNN, Dr Frank R. Lin, an assistant professor of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said:
“The tricky thing about loud noise exposure is that most people won’t see the impact for many years later. So consumers aren’t aware they are damaging their hearing until it’s too late.”
Here’s a tip for you. Any ringing or hollow sound in your ears is a bad sign. The ringing that you get for more than a day after a gig: that’s real trouble. I think I might buy some ear plugs. [Huffington Post]
Image: Subharnab
Stefan
Friday, November 18, 2011 at 7:08 AMI would have thought raising the volume on your device could be related to the noise cancellation abilities of the earphones. i.e. becuase the standard apple earphones are not noise cancelling, people tend to play their music louder to shut out extraneous noise. So obviously if you have noise cancelling, you play your music quieter.
Andre
Friday, November 18, 2011 at 9:22 AMThis may be so, however I’ve got freinds who have bought those expensive buds because they ARE so loud.
Almost as if they wanted other people on the trains and busses to hear what music they have playing, because the air-flow design of the earphones doens’t really keep sound in, either.
Grandadsbum
Friday, November 18, 2011 at 10:38 AMI’ve always found people and by people I mean teenagers, who have their music up so loud everybody can hear it to be very annoying and uncomfortable to deal with. I’d like to lean over and explain how much damage they’re doing to they’re ears but manners always intervenes.
villainsoft
Friday, November 18, 2011 at 11:49 AMhearing loss/damage is one disability that will be entirely curable in the future, so whatever dude.
Antipodean
Friday, November 18, 2011 at 11:52 AMSays who??
Pete
Friday, November 18, 2011 at 12:05 PMIgnorant and silly comment.
S0ULphIRE
Friday, November 18, 2011 at 2:08 PMWhile I agree with villainsoft that hearing loss/damage will be entirely curable in the near future, I don’t agree with his reasoning that suddenly that provides justification to smash your eardrums into pulp. I mean hey, broken bones are completely curable, but I’m not about to play who-can-break-their-leg-the-fastest anytime soon.
TSH
Friday, November 18, 2011 at 1:21 PMHey, so long as you’re prepared for the expenses for such treatment to come out of your own pocket, and not mine, by all means go ahead!
TSH
Friday, November 18, 2011 at 1:26 PMI’ve had tinnitus ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus ) ever since I can remember as a result of an ear infection as a toddler. When I was 7 I had “the ears of a 40 year old”. You know that high-pitched static sound that CRTs make when you first turn them on? Imagine hearing half a dozen different CRTs just like that, 24/7.
Hearing loss matters, folks.
veddermandan
Friday, November 18, 2011 at 3:06 PMMy hearing was damaged from the first concert i ever went too. Had ringing in my ears for 3 days. The other 200 or so shows have never reached the same level of DB’s, im sure this is down to my damaged hearing.
With my fully sick sub woofers in my car and the continual use of ipod i expect to be totaly deaf by 60.
Lindsay
Friday, November 18, 2011 at 6:30 PMWhy are there more people with earplugs at concerts? A good pair of earplugs actually makes the gig sound better by cutting down the muddled mess of sound waves and making so much clearer!
You ignorant masses, you…
MotorMouth
Saturday, November 19, 2011 at 9:22 AMThat’s absurd. Noise cancelling headphones don’t know what noise you want to hear and what noise you don’t, they try and get rid of everything that is coming from outside, which includes the music. Of course, the music is probably way too loud for them to be effective but that is still a stupid expectation.
Roland
Friday, November 18, 2011 at 9:37 PMI was born with tinnitus and it does sound like I have a crt going ‘when there is no external noise’. So I only hear the ringing when its quiet enough. I’ve always been super safe and cautious about my hears as its also ‘extremely’ sensitive. (If I turn my ipod touch on close to my head I can hear frequencies from it) Although its been pretty good (my hearing)
Some may just no think for it but really you don’t want to screw your hearing. Even if they have organic (solutions that don’t result in those bionic ear drums) cures in the future you don’t want to have to deal with the problems in the time being.
MotorMouth
Saturday, November 19, 2011 at 9:25 AMWhy now? We’ve had Walkmans since the 1980s, they even inspired the Cliff Richard hit “Wired For Sound”. Earbuds have been popular for much of that time, too, yet it is only since iPods that it seems to have become truly ubiquitous.
I stay away from headphones as much as I can because I know I listen too loudly, to make up for the lack of chest-thumping bass I get from my hi-fi. And if I can’t listen to things loud, I’d rather not listen at all, so I don’t.
Chris
Saturday, November 19, 2011 at 10:04 AMHow long before the class actions start from people who are deaf becaues of their i device. Apple with it’s outrageous cash reserves is the prime target
olearymo
Sunday, November 20, 2011 at 5:48 PM…what?