Is America going deaf?

Yes, we love to hear our music. With the advent of ultra-small and light personal music players now called MP3 players, everyone wants to carry their music with them. After iPods were introduced in the last decade, it made it even easier because these came with rechargeable lithium batteries that, under normal usage, held their power for weeks together. The change from having to purchase disposable batteries every single time to being able to simply recharge the player lead to the explosion in ubiquity of this generation of personal music players. This also made these cheaper to own and easier to use even not considering the fact that you do not have to carry a bag of CDs or cassettes (remember The Walkman?) of your favorite music.

This is all and good. However, what this has lead to is a lot of “un-intelligent” people owning and using this players. People do not understand that these are not simply music players but “PERSONAL” music players. The key word here is “personal”. Everyday, I see 100s of people on the street, in buses and trains with their iPods and other MP3 players – blasting their music on FULL VOLUME setting. I could sit 30 feet away and I can still hear the lyrics of the heavy metal song there are playing (blasting). The funny part is they think they are “cool”....they think they are the “now” generation. NO! What you are is simply stupid!

The inside of the human ear has tiny hair-like structures called cilia that vibrate and transfer the sound waves to the ear drum that moves it down the line to the brain. This is the simple outline of how we hear sounds. These cilia are very delicate and when hit with high decibel sounds can get detached and fall off. Once lost, they are not generated again. As we age, we slowly lose these cilia and our hearing power diminishes. However, continuously hearing loud music or hearing loud sounds accelerate this loss leading to pre-mature hearing loss that cannot be corrected. In fact, it is estimated that 1-hour of loud music per day will accelerate permanent hearing loss by about 20 days. Imagine….blasting your ears with LOUD music for just 1-hour today, will shorten your “good” hearing period by 20 days. And I see the same people doing it for hours and hours everyday. Kids, teenagers and even educated adults. Many believe that if they blast their music they can “cover-up” the sounds of the subway or the conversations other people next to them are having. Well, you can’t. You are only damaging your own ears – permanently. If you want to cancel out unwanted sound safely, you can purchase noise-cancellation earphones.

So, what is the correct volume to set your personal music player to? Here is an easy way to find out.

-Switch on the player. Put on the earphones or headphones.
-Turn up the volume to about 1/4th
-Now remove your earphones/headphones…..and move the buds all the way to the end of your shoulders on either side.

If you can hear the music, it’s too loud. Reduce the volume to just under where you can barely hear the music.

Now, you are set at the correct volume to enjoy your music without hurting your ears.

Enjoy!

Human ears are delicate “machines” and brilliant products of nature. They were not designed to withstand the continuous blast from loud speakers 2-feet away at a rock concert (loud personal music players have the same effect). So, take care of these wonderful sensory organs. In fact, even when using loud machinery, drills, cutting saws or even kitchen mixers, use cotton buds or a minimum of 32-db noise cancellation ear buds.