Scientists say 1 in 10 iPod users could go deaf

news.cnet.com...

If you spend more than an hour a day in deep intimacy with your iPod, your Zune, or some other MP3 machine, a group of important scientists would like you to turn it down and listen to them.

The EU's Scientific Committee on emerging health risks, which is normally concerned with noise in factories and the British Parliament, performed a study of MP3 usage.

The committee members' findings left them with a strange ringing feeling. They concluded that an hour's iPod usage a day for five years might make as many as 1 in 10 listeners deaf.

The problem, the committee believes, is that many people love to listen to their music too loud.

I know a lot of people are constantly glued to their iPods. It will be interesting to see just how bad this gets in the future. I would think there should already bee significant data showing how many people are already going deaf. The iPod has been on the market for 7 years now, so the damage should start surfacing soon.

I use headphones most of the time, whether I'm listening to music on my MP3 player or laptop, but the volume is not always high, usually just high enough for me to listen clearly. Even if I go deaf it'll be worth it.

Cool! I use to put my head up against 15" subwoofers with nice mids and tweets. And have done so repeatedly for the past 6 years, I find it heavily amusing.

However afar from the occasional ear ringings, I don't think I'm going deaf. I got pretty good ears.

To be honest, I think that's a very conservative estimate.

Anyone who is familiar with statistics about the D/deaf community in Britain is already aware that deafness affects a surprisingly large percentage of the population anyway. Also 'deafness' is more of a spectrum issue rather than something you have or you don't and I'd like to see more figures on the actual degree of hearing loss involved.

This is definitely one of those issues where young people think they are going to be invincible/invulnerable all their lives but eventually it will bite them on their arse. The same goes for binge-drinking and drugs that have been cut with all kinds of crap, it's going to be a big problem in a 30 years time or so.

When I think of the times I've been signing on a bus and some pleb in headphones has looked at me like I'm an idiot and I've thought 'I hope you're taking notes mate, because you're going to need this'.

Meh, they said the same thing about the walkman a "few" years back.
Plus, I was a DJ for 20 years with massive sound systems and headphones in my ears 2 to 3 times a week. You'd be shocked at the happiness that comes as a result of not hearing half the stuff people say. Makes marriage a breeze.

reply to post by schrodingers dog

Makes marriage a breeze.

*As I slowly turn up my iPod.............

Originally posted by schrodingers dog
Meh, they said the same thing about the walkman a "few" years back.

I thought about Walkman players myself when I posted earlier, but then, even though I remember them being pretty popular, I don't think they were anywhere near as ubiquitous as mp3 players or mp3 playing phones are now.

I think the potential for hearing loss has always been there, but the scale of the problem is the issue now.

reply to post by Merriman Weir


One issue that sets the new MP3 players aside from the walkman is the earbuds. Since those go in the ear, they have the potential to do more damage. How big of a difference there is, well I can't say for sure.