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Teen Hearing Loss
Hearing loss is becoming more common in teens and the cause is obvious: loud noise. Have you often seen a young person with a headset such as MP3 and iPod? You can be sure that the volume is very high, especially when they can't hear you or someone else calling their name. They are glued to their cell phones and often speak loudly into them. More than that the listener, another teen, has a cell phone pressed very close to his/her ears. More young people today have "boom boxes" and other high-tech sound systems than they did a generation ago. And then there's a number of young rock and pop stars attracting crowds of teens to their concerts. From a common-sense point of view, we should mention that today's teens live in an environment that is louder than ever before.
Studies in different countries show that many teens know the cause and effect relationship between high volume and damaged ears, but continue to crank up their iPods because these kids believe they are immune to hearing loss! Teenagers think that only "old people" get bad hearing. However, the damaged hearing begins at much younger age, perhaps during primary school!
A study from Children's Hospital Boston and City University of New York says that most college students play their iPods and MP3s too loud. Another American study reports that 20 percent of teenagers have some hearing loss. If the fact that one in five teens has this problem is still hard to believe, it's because it is painless. Hearing loss is a gradual process. Many medical conditions can be reversed. Hearing loss is not one of them!
5.3. What should be done about the unwanted noise? Can you give any advice?
3.No other pollutant ruins nearly as many lives as noise. It is the only one known to drive sufferers to murder; yet it receives so little public attention. Green pressure groups, which struggle actively on so many environmental threats, are almost universally silent about it. Noise pollution seems to be growing fast in many countries around the world. But in fact no government in the world seems prepared to deal with the problem.
Two thirds of Europeans are exposed every day to noise levels that according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) are unacceptable. About one in ten people are particularly sensitive to noise. In Britain, more than half a million people appear to move home every year to escape the noise. Ten years ago, a survey found that 12 million of UK citizens were disturbed by traffic, 3.5 million by passing aircraft, and 11 million by noisy neighbours. The situation is constantly getting worse: household noise complaints have risen five-fold over the past two decades. More people say they hate piped music in shops, restaurants and public buildings than like it.
Of course, we have been surrounded by sound since before birth and noise pollution is as old as civilization. Like other pollutant it is a by-product of industrialization, urbanization and modern civilization. Generally speaking, the noise pollution has two sources, industrial and non-industrial. The industrial source includes the noise from various industries and big machines working at a very high speed and high noise intensity. Non-industrial source of noise includes the noise created by traffic and the neighbourhood noise generated by various noise pollution.
Most leading noise sources fall into the following categories: road traffic, aircraft, railroads, construction, industry, noise in buildings and consumer products. Indoor and outdoor noise pollution sources include car alarms, emergency service sirens, mechanical equipment, fireworks, compressed air horns, grounds keeping equipment, barking dogs, appliances, audio entertainment systems, electric megaphones, and loud people.
4. Work in groups of four. Make a survey about your personal noise exposure. Use such phrases as none of us/ we all/ most students/only few
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