Hearing Loss From iPods
12.07.06 - 05:24pm
One doesn’t often think about the ramifications of listening to our favorite music at a loud volume, but the effects can be permanent. ” Hearing loss is achieved when listeners turn up the volume to higher than 85 decibels. IPods and portable players, on average can reach about 105 to 110 decibles at full volume. Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Children’s Hospital in Boston said last month that listening to music with earbuds or headphones, at full volume, for more than five minutes a day can increase the risk of hearing loss. They said users can safely listen to a portable music device for up to 4.6 hours a day if they stay at or below 70 percent peak volume.
People can lose half of their hearing range before they notice it,” said Webster, a retired Hollins University psychology professor. Of the 33 million American adults with some degree of hearing loss, about 22 million suffered permanent damage from loud noise, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. That number is expected to go up to 78 million by 2030.
Switzerland-based Phonak, a unit of Phonak Holding AG, is spending 500,000 Swiss francs ($414,000) to start a charitable foundation aimed at preventing hearing loss, Chief Executive Officer Valentin Chapero said. “This will become a mega-issue over the next 10 years,” Chapero said in an earlier telephone interview from Phonak headquarters in Staefa, Switzerland. “The problem with hearing is, it works very, very well. There’s no feeling in the act of hearing. Your eyes get tired; they can become red. You don’t feel your ears. They always work.”
We can prevent hearing loss with a myriad of different options. First off, of course, keep the volume on your headphones down. This can be difficult when we are trying to overcome loud outside noises, thus noise oscillating headphones which reduce outside noise can be some of the best to have. Also products such as the Ear 3, measure sound levels and tell you when it is damaging to your hearing. Children are especially sensitive to hearing loss and toys are often at too loud of volumes. They may sound fine to us standing four feet above them, but put it close to your hear and hear what your child hears.It is recommended to put clear packing tape over speakers of children’s toys, if they are loud, and this will muffle the sound.
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