Excessive Noise Can be Harmful Ear phones are worn snugly as people carrying portable music players walk past her everywhere she goes day in and day out. There is nothing surprising about it, a senior at Chicago University who listens to her iPod in the gym or while studying says. It is also common for people their age to damage their sense of hearing unknowingly. Devices like portable music players or anything connected directly to the ears are feared by researchers to bring nothing but more problems for the user.
Compared to the past, the director of clinical education in audiology from an Indiana university says that they have not seen as much usage as what can be seen nowadays. Devices like these are now listened to not only when people take a jog. In his opinion, senior citizen ears could now be seen in the youth. Students were randomly examined by him and a few colleagues and the results turned out to be an affirmation of how noise induced hearing loss has affected plenty of these youngsters. For someone who is not able to respond well to higher frequency sounds, there is the problem of not being able to follow a conversation if a place is noisy as well as the consistent experience of mild ringing in the ears.
Hearing specialists say they’re also seeing more people in their 30s and 40s who suffer from more pronounced tinnitus, an internal ringing or even the sound of whooshing or buzzing in the ears. The tip of the iceberg is what the current situation is being considered by the director of a hearing center at a children’s hospital in Houston working with people from this age group. Having more of these cases will not prove to be shocking.
Loud concerts and noisy clubs can easily be the reason for noise induced hearing loss in the same way as the use of firearms and power tools is. Doctors are saying that headphones have evolved into something people use not only for their music pleasure but also against the ambient noises from the streets, buses, and trains. A loss of hearing can be caused by everything.
It is somewhat difficult to get warned about future hearing loss. Discovering the problem may happen after years of waiting and a prolonged exposure, as said by an otologist in Minnesota. An easily detectable symptom of damaged ears is experiencing some ringing after being in a noisy place. An important aspect for the partial recovery of hearing is resting, as doctors say. Considering the hairs in the inner ear, they can still be damaged with continued exposure and without them you cannot hear.
Heading a task force on hearing and children, a Northern Colorado university audiologist mentions how the presence of rechargeable batteries leads to the worsening situation where people are listening to these portable devices even longer these days. Another problem was the ear splitting volume levels people employ for these. 25 percent of people who have portable stereos expose themselves to excessively high noise levels that can cause ear damage, as based on the survey published by the national acoustic laboratories in the summer. Other research efforts this time by Britain’s royal national institute for deaf people determined that those aged from 18 to 24 are more prone to going over the safe listening limits.
When is it excessive? According to the studies conducted by researchers from a children’s hospital in Boston, the rule of thumb to safe usage is using portable music players for an hour a day and only at 60 percent of the volume capacity. Ear protection can be worn in the workplace or when engaging in recreational activities as experts say but one can easily protect the ears by staying away from loud speakers.
