[real-eyes] On being safely plugged in
- From: "V Nork" <ginisd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2010 09:26:03 -0800
Hello friends, Below is an amusing but thought provoking article from a
British newspaper on safely using headphones. I found it a good reminder
for myself, since I sometimes fall asleep while wearing my headphones
while listening to my victor reader stream, and even radio broadcasts.
The occaision of my finding this article was doing a search on Proquest on
tinnitus, a sometimes maddening condition that features constant ringing or
hissing in the ears. A friend of mine unfortunately seems to have suddenly
developed tinnitus. It is. not clear what the triggers were in his case.
But it does appear that often tinnitus occurs as a hearing loss in the
higher frequencies that can happen after exposure to excess noise. Anyway,
I pass this on not to nag, but just as a note of caution since we all depend
so much on our hearing. My question is, in general, are ear buds a
slightly safer choice than headphones since some sound may escape with the
ear buds and the headphone seems a more of a direct channel to the
ear?Best, Ginnie
Turn down those headphones
By Alisa Bowman
Copyright Tribune Publishing Company Sep 6, 2010
A few months ago, while at an airport, I experienced a moment of weakness
and I plunked
down more money than I care to admit on a set of noise-reduction headphones.
I love them because I'm not a particularly social person. When on a plane or
a bus,
I prefer to stay lost in my thoughts than to talk to the person next to me.
Whenever
I put on those big honking headphones, no one talks to me. They are an
introvert's
nirvana.
But now that I have them, I find that I listen to music a lot more often
than I once
did. On the Bieber bus, for instance, I once used to nap or read as I
traveled to
and from New York. Now I put on my headphones, plug them into my iPhone and
listen
to Pandora. I even wear them when walking to and from my destination in the
city.
Let me tell you: New York City really comes alive when it's set to a tune by
the
Beastie Boys.
When I'm listening to an awesome song (the theme song from "Flashdance"
comes to
mind and, yes, I have eclectic tastes in music) it's, of course, tempting to
keep
turning up the volume.
Yet doing so could be risky. A recent study of 8,710 teens showed that
high-frequency
hearing loss doubled and the incidence of tinnitus (ringing, buzzing,
hissing in
the ears) tripled as the use of personal music players rose. Girls who used
personal
listening devices like iPods were 80 percent more likely to have hearing
loss than
girls who did not use them.
It's quite sobering news.
It's not necessarily that the headphones themselves are the problem, but
that we
tend to listen to music at a much higher volume through headphones than we
would
if we weren't wearing them. After all, with the headphones on, no one else
in the
house (or on the Bieber bus) is going to yell, "Turn down that stupid Donna
Summer
song. It's driving me crazy!"
To save your hearing, keep your music volume to roughly the same volume as
conversational
speech.
Alisa Bowman writes for The Morning Call's
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