Published by Shannon Miller
KEY POINTS
More kids have had their hearing damaged by noise. Headphone use is a major cause.
Parent should talk to children about what hearing loss feels like, the sensation of tinnitus, and how hearing can disappear without warning.
Kids should aim to play headphones at no more 50 percent of full volume; 100 percent is 110 decibels, the same as a siren.
Loud sounds are bad for us, and piping them directly into your ears makes it worse. You may have read warnings about the dangers of headphones but not taken them too seriously. However, a large study published in June makes a strong case: When researchers compared hearing exams for thousands of adults in Norway at two points, 20 years apart, they confirmed that those who reported using personal music devices at high volume had worse hearing. Today's children are especially in danger, retired audiologist Jan Mayes told me. If small children use headphones, by their teens to early twenties they might have trouble understanding speech in noisy places. By the time these children are in their mid-40s, they might be as hard of hearing as their grandparents are today, in their 70s and 80s, added Daniel Fink, an internist and board chair of The Quiet Coalition....
Read the full article on Psychology Today here.
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