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Is the iPod Generation Going Deaf?
prozac79 writes "Ars Technica and Wired News are both running interesting articles on how personal music players are a major contributor [ArsTechnica] to early hearing loss [Wired]. According the ArsTechnica article, an increasing number of people are now living in "noisy" environments that is only made worse by blocking it out with even louder music. The article also suggests that listening to music for one hour a day is considered safe. So now you have a choice... go deaf early or go insane listening to your coworkers chatter."
I have a pair of Bose Quietcomfort headphones, and I wonder if the noise cancelling is actually damaging my hearing. What do you think?
Noise cancelling headphones if correctly implemented are rather more complex than just inserting an inverted signal. For the record, I am deaf (artillery and large engines, as if you care) and because of the strange hole in my hearing response I use a digital hearing aid. The configuration screen for programming this runs to a number of pages, and I can have it set to include or exclude things like refrigerator and fan noise. In fact, I have one program that does optimised noise cancelling to get the best speech response, and another that does no noise cancelling which is useful for music and for checking that things like HDDs are making the right noises.
Noise cancelling technology is already used in professional telephone headsets, and I am surprised that it is missing from iPods and the like. It would be easy enough to have a button which switched between cancelling and not cancelling external noise sources and which, like my hearing aid, has a setting which allows through a sudden loud noise when in N/C mode, as a safety factor in traffic. This would mean the ability to listen at lower volume levels in noisy conditions.
I have a local inductive loopset (one of the few good things to come out of Nokia in my view) which allows me to use the cell phone and to inject another sound source. With the hearing aid switched to inductive pickup only, and to block external sound, I can make a phone call in noisy conditions without difficulty.
Conclusion: the technology exists to fix these problems and enable people to listen at lower volumes, manufacturers just can't be bothered.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
I have mild hearing damage in my left ear, unrelated to headphones. In my case, it has to do with years of practicing the violin without an earplug in my left ear (which is most vulnerable to damage in violinists).
:)
Nevertheless, I think the iPod generation is in luck, because they are also one of the first generations where genetic therapy is not purely science fiction. In the past couple of years, researchers discovered that the production of a protein (Rb1) was responsible for the behaviour shared by the inner ear hair cells of all mammals, or more to the point... the reason the hair cells do not divide and hearing does not regenerate. Recently scientists discovered the gene that was responsible for producing this protein in mice. Given 5 to 10 years, I am optimistic the naive iPod generation, senior citizens and even I will be eligible for gene therapy to reverse the effects of hearing loss.
It is important to protect your hearing, but damage is inevitable no matter how careful you are. Luckily, for musicians and the ignorant iPod generation, there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon