A startling new survey conducted by the NFD shows nearly half of New Zealands young people have potentially damaged their hearing by the time they reach age 25.
Used to having a choice of when and where they enjoy their music, Generation Y is blasting their ears for the greater part of every day on iPods, car stereos and laptops.
Health professionals are starting to see the kind of hearing loss in younger people typically found in aging adults, says Wellington Hospital audiology team leader Sargunam Sivaraj.
“Today hearing loss is one of the leading and fastest growing serious disabilities in our modern society,” Mr Sivaraj says, with one third of all types of hearing loss attributable to exposure to excessive noise and loud music.
Mr Sivaraj warns that our ears are not created to cope with loud noises. “You only get one set of ears to last your whole life so you need to treat them right.”
It is not just the volume that music is being listened to but the number of hours that is causing the damage. 85dB for 8 hours a day is deemed a safe limit but turn that up by just 3dB, and you need to drop the exposure time by half, i.e. four hours to keep within a healthy range of exposure. So listening to 95dB would be safe for about 30 minutes per day. A concert can get as loud as 120dB.
Hearing loss can greatly affect education, employment and it could have a major impact on a person’s quality of life through impaired communication and social isolation.
But a devil may care attitude rules many of the 18-25 year olds surveyed who have already experienced symptoms of hearing damage.
Three quarters of those surveyed who listen to music regularly said it sounds better louder (above the safe level where it still sounds good). Many also said they wouldn’t wear ear plugs because they believed they affect sound quality and they didn’t want to look uncool.
“We have a significant challenge ahead of us,” says Mr Sivaraj. “Given the serious health and social consequences of hearing impairment, its increasing prevalence is a real cause for concern.”
“Preventing hearing loss should become a national health priority otherwise a considerable portion of health funding will be spent on hearing loss rehabilitation and providing hearing aids. The allocated funding will never be sufficient to fulfil everyone’s hearing needs,” he says.
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