My generation is going deaf!

[Darrol]

http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/27/study-finds-teens-dont-really-care-about-their-hearing/

Those darn kids -- they just don't listen! And soon, according to a report, they won't physically be able to listen. It seems that modern teens, with their cloaking jackets, space telephones, and telepathic headsets fail to obey the simplest tenet of leisure-time music enjoyment: keeping their iPod and Zune volumes at a semi-natural level. In focus-group discussions, researchers found that high school students in the Netherlands were aware of the potential hearing loss which can be caused by high volume listening, yet had no immediate plans to crank their jams at anything but 11. Typical of our misguided youth, the teens feel that they have a "low personal vulnerability" to hearing loss -- researchers also noted that they believed they were bulletproof, could fly, and would never, ever lose touch with people who signed their yearbook. The study's findings suggest that the answer to this problem may lie with manufacturers of hardware and solutions like volume caps or warning lights, rather than with the self-control of the end user.

I guess the hearing aid companies will love us one day.

I personally respect my hearing and can't stand music when it is that loud.

[shadowcastaz]

Huh?.....What? No ,Im not gonna walk the  garbage can!!!!!!!

[Dave W]

Darrol, it's not just your generation. Plenty of guys in their 30s and 40s have hearing loss.

I love loud rock, but I take precautions. I just can't understand cranking up your headphones to skull-crushing volume.

[Darrol]

Darrol, it's not just your generation. Plenty of guys in their 30s and 40s have hearing loss.

I know but so many people my age just blast music from their iPods or whatever they are listening to without even caring what comes from it.

[Dave W]

My older son did the exact same thing when he was in high school in the late 80s. He spent a lot of time under the headphones listening to Metallica, Megadeth and the like at volume so high you could hear it in other rooms when he had his door closed. He joined the Air Force in the early 90s and told me the hearing tests they would give him in the service showed that his hearing was normal. And maybe it was, but every time he was home on leave, he'd crank up the treble on my stereo and bass head.That tells me theremust have been at least some temporary loss.

A couple of years ago at the FDP somebody posted a link to an online hearing test. At my advanced age I could still hear the 19 Khz test tone. That surprised me since you read about hearing loss with age, and I was even more surprised my computer speakers put out anything audible at 19 Khz.