Hearing Loss Risks of the iPod Generation – Is the Damage Already Done?
They're everywhere these days. Waiting at the bus stop, head bobbing up and down. On the tube, the hum of noise detectable to those standing close by. Amateur runners, pounding the streets clad in fluorescent gear, focused, yet zoned out. Even desk-bound office workers, typing and staring at computer screens while tuned in.
The iPod generation. It's them, it's us, it's you. The sight of a person wearing headphones is now so commonplace it's virtually impossible to go through a typical active or working day without seeing at least one individual listening to music as they go about their business. And while there is nothing wrong in enjoying music, caution must be practiced. Listening to loud music for long periods of time puts a person at risk - and the so-called "iPod generation" is most exposed.
A recent study by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) in the US revealed that the number of American citizens aged three years and older with hearing loss had more than doubled since 1971. More than that, over 12% of children between the ages of six and 19 years, and over 15% of children between the ages of 12 and 19 years, have noise-induced hearing loss. One of the reasons for this has been attributed to the extensive use of MP3 players.
The NIDCD asks the following question: 'Do you love your iPod or other MP3 player? Can you learn to love it a little more... quietly?' It states that the two ways to tell if the volume of your iPod or MP3 player is too high is if the earphones prevent you from hearing what's going on around you, and if someone sitting next to you can hear the music coming from the earphones.
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Even discounting that (I'm wary about statistics especially when no raw data, like sampling, standard deviation, standard error and distribution that actually truly qualifies statistics, the comparison was to 1971. The Walkman became available in 1979. I was visiting Japan for the first time on a school trip, and came back with one, they were available in Japan before being available anywhere else (electronics makers used to test domestic marketability before releasing to the rest of the world). Also at that time, boomboxes (ghetto blasters) were also popular in Japan since space is an issue in Japanese houses, these portable all-in-ones were popular, again not so much in the Western world at that time. I also came back with one of those.
In very early 1982, with the rising popularity of the Walkman, there was some evidence that having the headphone transducers in close proximity to the eardrum and that high sound volume was likely causing teen hearing problems. Basically, you wouldn't give a roughly $200 fragile item to a preteen or lower. $200 back then would fill up your gas tank roughly 30 times, so nearly a years worth of gasoline, so to be in the affect group you would have had to be rich or be born in 1969 or before. So, there was a correlation between the high volumes of these first personal music devices and hearing loss. So, previous to any iPod or MP3, (nor where there any earbuds - just earphones that were used for the early transistor radios) there was already mounting evidence that those personal devices with headphones were a cause for concern. In other words, in the "iPod Age" it was already old information. i.e. already well known way before the iPod and MP3. The MP3 players were in the late 1990s and the iPod was released in October 2001. In the high tech world, 8 years (MP3) to nearly 2 decades prior to the iPod's introduction this was already widely believed that hearing loss due to personal entertainment devices where a prime culprit. This is not news, it is history.
My nieces and nephews constantly walk around with earbuds in, oblivious to their surroundings. I'm going to point their parents to this article.
It's hard to fight the urge to "pump up" the volume when your favorite songs come on. I will be much more aware of the impact now.
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