Herding Off Hearing Damage
Thursday, February 9, 2017 by Cyber Acoustics
We only get five senses, which means that protecting each is crucial while kids are growing up.
Something that can be difficult to protect from is the threat of hearing loss. Overexposure to loud, concussive noise against the ear’s mechanics can prevent a child’s hearing from developing to full strength, and can even cause lasting cumulative damage which may manifest later in life.
But, it’s about more than resisting the urge to crank it up to eleven when exposing your students and/or kids to your favorite #TBT tunes. Hearing loss is different than other sensory damage because the former can be so much harder to immediately perceive. Hearing loss usually makes itself evident gradually, and by the time people are aware of it, the damage has often already been done.
As we take on the task of our children's development, we need to stay informed about what threatens childhood development out there. Avoiding loud concerts and reminding kids to keep the volume down on their phones and video games is easy, but it's also easy to miss all the other red flags. To help raise awareness about potentially damaging toys, technology, and tools, we offer this insider tip: Not all promises are always kept, even when those promises involve the health, safety, and well-being of a child.
A recent study found that nearly half of the 30 headphone sets that were tested did not meet the volume restriction specs they claimed to operate within. In other words, there are products on the market right now that claim to limit the high-volume exposure your children or students experience, but those products are failing to actually fulfill their part of the deal.
In 2010, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that about one in five teens were dealing with noise-induced hearing loss. Since most hearing loss occurs because of regular overexposure to high volumes rather than single-incident instances of high decibel volumes, it’s safe to say that the causes are numerous and pervasive throughout society and modern life, especially for our nation's young people.
There’s no simple explanation for why this is the case, just the overwhelming fact of the matter: we are routinely exposed to too much noise at far too young an age. As a result, we need to manage the listening habits and practices of children, and this goes beyond having them comply when asking them to turn it down.
Listening may seem like something we do passively as sound waves come our way, but our audio experience plays a huge part in our active involvement with the everyday world. Our ears need a break now and then, and just like any other part of the human body, we need to be careful how much we push our hearing's stamina. Monitoring and supervising kids’ interaction with technology, in this case how much time they spend with headphones on, is always a good practice. But, there are also proactive, necessary educational steps to take.
Volume limiting is crucial. With more and more wireless devices available for myriad uses, we need to know that our children and students are listening at safe levels. If your students or children use devices regularly with headphones, check the device settings to see if you can adjust the playback volume. Most tablets and phones have the capacity to limit the maximum audio output, and even if this isn’t an end-all be-all solution, it’s a good safeguard to have in place.
Cyber Acoustics is invested in the hearing health and protection of those using our products at all ages. We offer affordable headphones designed with children’s hearing and education in mind. That means our headphones are tested to meet safety recommendations, while still being an excellent tool for learning, listening, and playing!
To learn more, take a look at our headphone options here.