Posted on 03/02/2006 11:17:16 AM PST by formercalifornian
Hear that silence? It’s the sound of America going deaf from an earful of technology.
What’s that, you say?
Popular technology — not just the iPod — threatens everyone’s hearing, especially children and teenagers, according to a new report by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA).
While much attention has focused on the iPod and other personal music players, the association randomly chose and tested nine devices that can be turned up to potentially damaging decibel levels.
Among those tested were Bluetooth headsets that allow wireless communication and laptop components that let travelers listen to private concerts while blocking out the roar of plane engines.
“All of the devices we tested can produce sound well above the maximum safety level of 85 decibels,” said ASHA spokeswoman Pam Mason.
A level of 85 decibels is about the loudness of a lawnmower. Many of the devices tested produced up to 120 decibels.
Particularly worrisome, the group said, is a new generation of music players marketed to children, such as the Bratz Liptunes MP3 player and the Disney Mix Stick. Chris Heatherly, a Disney spokesman, said Wednesday that their device complies with all safety requirements. He said the company could not comment on the study, which they had not yet reviewed. A 9-year-old third-grader at Woodland Elementary School in Kansas City said with a grin that he turns up the volume on his music player “so loud my parents can hear it and they say to turn it down.” Students in his class Wednesday were getting their annual hearing tests. Cynthia Fett, an audiologist for the Kansas City School District, asked how many of the 17 students regularly listened to music on personal players. Nine hands went up.
How many turn up the volume? Most hands remained in the air.
Kathy LeTourneau, another district audiologist, said that while it can take years for hearing loss to occur, if a child listens to music too loud for too long it can lead to “premature aging of their hearing.”
Audiologists are particularly concerned about the growing use of ear buds.
“With the ear buds, you can still hear some of the background noise, so people tend to turn the volume up even louder,” said Kristen Dawson, an audiologist at St. Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City.
Common sense would solve the problem. I've been hearing about loud music ruining your hearing since I was a teenager many moons ago!
Slightly below the decibal level of the Zeppelin show I saw in '77...
I want the Spinal Tap edition of the iPod. The volume goes to eleven.
I'm afraid this message will fall on deaf ears.
I just don't believe people are ready to hear something like this.
They told us we'd go blind.
Do they have volume controls?
Would be nice to have a tunable machine gun, so one could shoot a melody. That could get to 150db level.
LOL. My first thought. I believe Man-O-War still holds the record for loudest concert ever......about the equivalent of sticking your head in a running jet engine.
In the casset walkman it were the high pitch background noise of the tape which prevented me from using it. New devices do not have that.
To say technology is making us deaf is the dumbest thing ever.
Do they want us to die of cancer going back to galene radios & smoke signals?
Saw the Nuge in 78 - also known as "The Beast From 20,000 Decibels". It was a free for all!
There is nothing here that wasn't true 25 years ago and ever since with the Walkman.
Some people just seem to need to get their names in the paper.
Yeah, they said the same thing would happen when I used to crank up Headbanger's Ball as a kid...
Wait, what did you say? Huh??
Obviously, these folks have never stood next to a stack of Marshall's at an AC/DC concert.
Zep was the loudest I ever saw (ears rang for days), followed by The Who.
Much ado about nothing.
I'll file this right next to the article from the seventies "Pornography set to create a blind generation".
(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
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