Hear No Evil – Hearing Loss Concerns Fall on Deaf Ears
How high do you crank your music when you’re wearing headphones? It’s probably too loud.
On the train this morning, a woman had her headphones up so loud that I could easily hear what she was listening to in spite my being at least 15 feet away from her. I was hearing this over the sound of a moving NYC subway which is loud in the first place. Unfortunately, this is common occurrence.
I fear that not enough is being done to educate people about hearing loss. In an age where there is a focus on healthful lifestyle choices, hearing health seems to get passed over. An increasing number of people in their 30’s and 40’s are experiencing levels of hearing loss generally experienced in older people – likely as a result of being the first “Walkman Generation.” Today’s iPod users are abusing their ears starting from a younger age, so the long term effects on the next wave of adults could get progressively worse.
As a musician and music lover, hearing is very important to me. I feel that more should be being done to let people know that hearing loss is progressive and permanent. I intend to do more research into this. Eventually, I would like to start a hearing loss awareness campaign or get involved with an existing one.
To read more about this topic…
Dangerous Decibels
More headphone use leading to hearing loss
Noisy Planet
I really enjoyed reading your post, keep up writing such exciting articles!
Sound Opinions did a show on this awhile back.
From the show summary:
With the emergence of the mp3 generation has come increasing concern about the relationship between personal music players and hearing loss. A recent European study links loud headphone habits to permanent hearing damage, and in some cases, damage you may not notice for years. Because so many music fans are listening to their tunes via iPods or other mp3 players, Jim and Greg wanted to get the lowdown on music-related hearing loss from Chicago DJ and producer Carolynn Travis, known to many as Chaka T. Due to her life in the music scene, Chaka is now legally deaf in one ear, and has a 60% loss in the other. She is a hearing protection advocate and founder of the hi-fi earplug company EarLove.
You can listen here: http://www.soundopinions.org/shownotes/2008/122608/shownotes.html
EarLove:
http://www.earlove.net/what.html
I got myself some of those EarLove earplugs and I love ‘em :)
~Lis
Sweet, thanks Lis. I lost a lot of hearing in my left ear due to the many hours standing next to Mark’s cymbal in the Stoopid Chemists. And years of jamming in cramped studio spaces didn’t exactly help, either. I’m lucky I can hear at all. I don’t know if I’d be able to go on without my hearing…
Hi Nathan,
I’ve experienced time after time the scene you described on the subway and it amazes me that people don’t appreciate how important our hearing is. (Let alone the annoyance of hearing other poeple’s music over and above other sounds)
There’s a campaign over here in UK called ‘Don’t Lose the Music’, supported by various celebrities and musicians including Paul McCartney, Sir Cliff Richard, Phil Collins, your very own Moby. Worth a look: http://www.dontlosethemusic.com/
For us at DeafWise it could be that in 10 years time we’re training a lot more people in deaf awareness and communication tactics for people who are ‘deafened’ (loss of hearing) rather than those who are born deaf.
Hi Spencer,
That’s what I wonder – if people don’t realize that they are damaging their hearing or don’t care. I sure would like to believe it’s the former. Though I think there are those who think it’s “cool” to force people to listen to their music – just like those guys with the 30-inch woofers in their car you can hear coming from 3 blocks away.
Thanks for posting the link – it’s a great site! Very straight forward. I sincerely hope your prediction does not come true and that people start to realize that they can take measures to protect their hearing.
- N