Listen Up: Volume Down
Ear buds may cause early deafness
Want to preserve your youth? Forget Botox and plastic surgery. Start with taking better care of your ears. According to many audiologist and hearing experts, listening to an MP3 player at a high volume may force you to exchange those sleek ear buds for your grandma’s hearing aid—all by the ripe age of 30. While many music lovers say that they are aware that listening to iPods and MP3 players at high volumes can lead to early deafness, not many of them — especially young listeners — do anything about it. Even college students who express concern about the risk of hearing loss still listen to their music at potentially dangerous levels. According to a survey taken of 100 students from the University of Texas, 85 percent said they were aware that listening to their MP3 players at a high volume might cause hearing damage. But only 62 percent said they would change their listening habits. “It’s hard to take the warnings seriously when I’ve never personally met someone who has gone deaf because of listening to their iPods,” said UT Austin senior Nancy Kwong. In a recent study that Audiologist Cory Portnuff conducted at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the study discovered that typically teenagers turn up the volume of their MP3s when their parents instruct them to do otherwise. Portnuff said he doesn’t understand the behavior of the people tested, but hopes that he can better reach the public about the danger of tuning in at high volumes with the anticipation that his message won’t fall on deaf ears. “Certainly we know that college students are at high risks because they listen to their players for longer durations, and as you listen for longer durations, the safe listening level decreases,” Portnuff said. “It’s really a many-pronged issue. Understanding what people do is a whole different ballgame than why they do it. We’re working with social psychologists to target the [college] population.” The number of Americans age 3 and older with some form of auditory disorder has doubled since 1971, from 13.2 million to about 30 million, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Web site. About one-third are said to be people with noise-induced hearing loss.
How loud before you burst your ears?So how loud can you blare your music on that MP3 player before a doctor’s warning turns into anything but music to your ears? Portnuff recommends a simple 80/90 rule based on how high volume dials reach on an iPod. He said you may turn the volume up 80 percent of the way for 90-minute use and then change this number with duration of exposure. “Certainly if you listen only 20 minutes you can do 90 percent,” Portnuff said. “Only five minutes, then you can turn it all the way up.” While many people believe it’s the internal earphones that can cause ear damage, ear experts say there’s little difference between listening to music with external or internal headphones. “Exposure to high levels of noise or music can damage the inner ear over time because [headphones] are so close to the ear drum,” Christine Matyear said, a communication sciences and disorders senior lecturer at UT Austin. “So it’s not the shape of the earphones as much as the fact that they are very close to the eardrum.” Take headphones along with high levels of music and lengthy exposure and you have a sound recipe for potential early hearing loss, Matyear explained. “People tend to leave them in for hours and hours and hours and that’s where they’re doing damage,” Matyear said. “Too loud too long of an exposure without letting the ears take a break and that’s where you start to get into trouble.”
Audiologists measure noise levels in decibels. Some MP3 players reach 115 decibels, which according to experts lies within the pain threshold level. A noisy restaurant is about 90 decibels, which Matyear said is a workable range for about eight hours without causing permanent damage to the ears. Matyear said to cut the duration of exposure in half for an increase in every five decibels. So at 100 decibels, which most MP3 players reach, cut the listening time to two hours or less. Hearing damage occurs when loud sound destroys tiny hair cells in the inner ear. As 25 to 30 percent of these cells disappear, Matyear said, you begin to experience hearing loss. Once the hair cells are damaged, they never regenerate. Portnuff said the important thing is to be aware of one’s own listening habits. “Know what your listening levels are and take a look at your volume dial,” Portnuff said. “If you’re listening at high levels maybe you need to consider upgrading earphones or listening in quieter places.”
|
19 Responses to “Listen Up: Volume Down”
this is a lot of info for one page. i would suggest splitting it up into at least two.
great variety of content though!
Great report; I’d say, break this up into more than just one page, because right now it’s a little overcrowded.
haha….I love the Bob jensen quote at the end of the video. That was great
Great lead! I love the humor in this story. Adding the hearing test (in an attractive way that didn’t just resort to a hyperlink) is a great idea. Great infographics, great photos, great layout. The pie chart takes too much time to figure out, but this story is really good. Great job!
Very applicable to students… great story idea! Love all the interactive pieces… video, photos, info-graphics, and the “hearing test.” The page is really long, but other than that… great job! Oh Jensen!
This is very informative and something that we should all think about. On your pie graph, I would put the number of minutes in chronological order. I remember someone from your group designed the person holding the ipod (graphic) do you want to make this bigger? show off!
very relevant topic. great layout.
on the video i would change the title from “J321C: the type of earphones” to something else.
I like the info graphics and definitely enjoyed the video!
I really like your topic. I’ve always wanted to learn more about it. I agree you should change the title of your video. I enjoyed the video and photos. Good job!
You have great content and it is organized very well! Maybe make it two pages though just so the reader isn’t overwhelmed with things to look at. Since you have such great graphics, two pages might be more effective.
We like all the elements you guys use. However, perhaps you could divide this into a few pages so it’s not a lot to look at all at once. The headline is very catchy and creative and the video is well done.
Hi! The page is really long, but I like all the multimedia aspects… videos, info-graphics, pictures, and the hearing test! good work! A totally applicable story to young people, so way to hit the target audience!
The report is great, I’d just recommend breaking it up into a couple of pages since there is so much information. The test brings a unique aspect to your story.
Jared, you’re the man. Y’all did pretty good. Small audio problems, but all in all very good. Loved Jensen.
Very relevant topic. I really enjoyed the video!
Great topic. I own an IPod myself and I’ve never really put much thought into how much damage I could be doing to my ears. Very interesting… I like the video especially Jensen’s rant at the end. That was hilarious. I don’t know how you got him saying that, but pretty funny. Great job!
Awesome topic and GREAT writing. However I think you should split it into two pages. The infographic is great as is the video, because the narration blends in really well with each professor’s testimonials. The noise level chart is a little blurry but I am sure that will be easy to fix and I think the hearing test at the end is great. Also, if possible for the university studies, it might beneficial to link to the study (if possible) instead of just the school homepage.
I really like the photo gallery, my group thought about doing that but never got around to it. And good call on the inclusion of Jensen in your video.
That was funny when Bob Jenson’s voice came on, but was it appropriate?…I guess since this web magazine is targeting a young adult audience.
Great job guys- it was a relevant and interesting topic, and you interviewed the right sources. The Jensen part of the video was classic– people outside of the J school might not get it, but for our class it worked.
Leave a Comment