Friday, January 14, 2011

Make a New Year's Resolution to use your headphones less

Make it a New Year’s Resolution to use your headphones less

Not only do they isolate you, but they may also be making you deaf.

To parents:
 
     One in five teenagers in America cannot hear rustles or whispers, according to a study published in August in The Journal of the American Medical Association.  These teenagers exhibit what’s known as slight hearing loss, which means they often cannot make out consonants like T’s or K’s, or the plinking of raindrops.  The number of teenagers with hearing loss from slight to severe has jumped 33 percent since 1994. 
     Give the current ubiquity of personal media players – the iPod and mp3 players almost a decade ago- many researchers attribute this widespread hearing loss to exposure to sound played loudly and regularly through headphones.  (Ear buds, in particular, do not cancel as much noise from outside as do headphones that rest on or around the ear, so ear bud users typically listen at higher volume to drown out interference).  These findings were particularly interesting to me because I have an iPod that I use at the gym and when cutting the grass.  I saw many teenage patients using “Skull candy” ear buds and was informed that these provided the best sound.  So off to Target I went in search of the ear buds. 
The August AMA report reinforces a 2008 European study of people who habitually blast personal media players.  According to that report headphone users who listen to music at high volumes for more than an hour a day risk permanent hearing loss after five years. 
      I have given up my “Skull candy “ear buds and exchanged then for over the ear Nike headphones.  Make it a resolution to use headphones less.  Protecting our kids hearing is not just as important as protecting their brains it is protecting their brains.