Headphone News

	A shocking example of how our culture glorifies deafness.

Either we're misinterpreting these study results, or the reporter is. Apparently, a recent survey conducted by Australian Hearing found, 'adults aged between 18 and 24 reported suffering from tinnitus or ringing in the ear.' They reported suffering from tinnitus. That means that, at some point in their lives, they've felt ringing in their ears at least once.

Doesn't this just mean that 18 to 24 year olds are more likely to have attended a few concerts? Granted, these concerts do cause some minor hearing loss, but nothing you'd miss. Further, we're not sure about you, but a quick survey of the office revealed we all feel kinda sick after a tinnitus-inducing concert experience.

Undaunted by our audible disdain, the article continued on, offering up such novel assertions  as, 'Listening to loud music through headphones is thought to be more detrimental to hearing than other sources of leisure noise,' and 'There [are] steps people could take to minimise the risk of going deaf from loud music.'

. . . a way to listen to music . . . without going deaf? Bravo, internet news article, on yet another intrigued reader! Please inform us on how we can enjoy our leisure noise and our hearing!

Those who deal with significant occupational noise should always wear the proper equipment.

Lazy sarcasm aside, we'll go ahead and assume some people out there haven't connected the dots yet. It seems logical that, since concert-induced tinnitus goes away, you can listen to absurdly loud music and not suffer permanent hearing loss. If you belive this, and are reading this article, you have probably gathered your logic is flawed. Then again, exactly how flawed is this logic?

According to a source we admittedly found via Wikipedia, it all evens out if you live until 80: 'Though older males exposed to significant occupational noise demonstrate significantly reduced hearing sensitivity than their non-exposed peers, differences in hearing sensitivity decrease with time and the two groups are indistinguishable by age 79.' Interestingly enough, the same source says women don't show noticeable signs of hearing loss, and those exposed to occupational noise generally hear better than non-exposed males.

	Noises can hurt.

Whether or not Wikipedia is lying to us, the point remains the same: we already know loud noises are harmful to our hearing. This is why, when we hear a loud noise, or go to a concert, our ears hurt afterward, sometimes for a day or two. Pain, if you're unaware, is how the human body informs you of injury. If someone constantly subjects him/herself to painful auditory trauma, and remains oblivious to their gradual hearing loss until it becomes significant, we doubt an internet news piece will save them.

[Via Economic Times, News.com.au, and AFP, which gave us the baby picture]