Rochester, NY - We live in a technical world, full of laptops, Smartphones, and MP3 players. Experts aren't blaming a higher rate of teen hearing loss strictly to the use of those devices, but senior clinical audiologist Dawn D'Agostino says they're a big contributing factor.
"In the past 20 years, there has been such an increase in hearing loss or teens showing some signs of hearing loss, that the only thing they can really relate that to is the increased use of personal stereo devices," says D'Agostino.
She's been an audiologist for over twenty years, and says that many teens probably don't even notice they have hearing loss until it's too late.
"Probably in their 30s and 40s, they would start to notice trouble being able to understand what people are saying, trouble with background noise, that kind of thing."
That's alarming to Jason Cuthbert, who is a freelance writer in his 30s. He says he turns the volume up to block out sound while he's working. And he estimates he has headphones on for a good portion of the day.
"(I use them) too much," he says. "Like probably 6-8 hours probably, because I do freelance stuff. I should probably take heed to that."
There's nothing you can do to reverse the damage once it's done, but as parents, D'Agostino says it's easy to prevent hearing loss to begin with.
"We just need to be better at telling them 'that's too loud,' and if you can hear it and you don't have the device or you're not sitting too close - that's too loud."
She says that a safe listening level is about 85 decibels, which is not quite as loud as a lawnmower. But, some kids are listening to their devices at 120 or 130 decibels - more like the level of a jackhammer or jet engine!
The Rochester Hearing and Speech Center sells specialized ear buds for kids that limit the output level of their personal listening devices.
