Teens risk going deaf from music players
An EU conference was told yesterday that up to one in 10 of young listeners risk permanent hearing loss by their mid-20s as the volume of their personal MP3 player is too high.
The current safety standard is 100dB but some players have maximum volumes of 120dB, as loud as an airplane taking off.
There is legislation to prevent people being exposed to dangerous noise levels in the workplace, but nothing in relation to leisure noise, EU consumer commissioner Maglena Kuneva said.
“The research shows that up to 10% of personal music player listeners — that is up to ten million people in the EU — risk permanent hearing loss. We have to look again at the controls in the light of this new scientific advice on limits.”
Doctors, scientists and industry experts, including Apple and Nokia, discussed how to reduce the dangers at the meeting in Brussels.
A report said that listening to loud sounds from any personal music players, including mobile phones, can lead to temporary or permanent hearing loss, ringing in the ears and problems understanding what is being said in noisy environments.
Using ear buds rather than headphones can make it worse, as can smoking and the surrounding acoustic environment and a person’s genetic make-up.
The scientists recommend reducing volumes to 80dB, the safe limit for workers.
But music players can pose a danger even when the volume is not up, they say, because people are less aware of what is going on around them. They can be distracted and isolated, which could prove dangerous for drivers or people walking on busy roads.
Listening to music can help when doing boring and repetitive jobs, but is not helpful when performing complicated tasks that require thinking, the research showed. Reading skills and memory are affected by even short-term exposure to sounds like road and aircraft noise, and they believe the same is true for music.
“Listening to personal music players while trying to read a text is thus expected to affect how well the text is remembered and how much is learnt from it.”
