Teens at Risk.

Teens at Risk

Courtesy of the
Hearing Foundation of Canada

Look at the smiling faces inside booming cars, beside loud stereos and in the audience at explosive rock concerts and chances are good you’re probably looking at the eager faces of teenagers.

Kids love noise - and given audiologists increasing concern over environmental noise and the hearing loss that can result - parents of teenagers have cause to be concerned for their child’s hearing.

"Teenagers are especially at risk, from all the usual things," says Dr. David Brown, audiologist and auditory researcher at University of Calgary’s Faculty of Medicine. "Not only that, but we just finished doing a piece here on raves. My understanding is that they’re very loud and they go for eight to 10 hours. Again, it’s recreational noise that people might overlook. And things like this start to creep up on us."

The thing is, one type of noise-induced hearing loss is cumulative. The risk of hearing impairment starts after prolonged exposure at decibel levels of 85 or higher. And according to The Hearing Foundation of Canada, things as seemingly innocuous as a telephone dial tone and a subway car check in at 85 dB or higher. The kinds of sounds teens like to hear are, as you might imagine, considerably louder.

Consider this information from The Hearing Foundation of Canada:

If you frequent rock concerts, you are routinely exposed to sound levels above 100 dB - the closer you are to the speakers, the greater the risk involved. (The Foundation says regular exposure of over one minute risks permanent hearing loss).
Portable cassette players can be louder than 115dB. One Michigan researcher has shown that almost everyone who participated in his study, including fellow audiologists, listened above a safe level.
Some car stereos are capable of volume output as high as 140 to 150 dB. The loss is documented. Over 15 per cent of school-age children have hearing loss, according to U.S. statistics. And a Queen’s University study reported hearing loss in over one-third of 60 students who said they regularly did things like listen to stereo music, play in bands and play video games. None had ever been exposed to industrial noise.

But hearing loss isn’t the only problem, either, according to Brown.

"Kids who go to school close to things like airports don’t do as well as kids who don’t. Noise has other effects on the body as well. Noise affects pre-term infants - loud sounds decrease oxygen and increase heart rates. It also affects the average person. You’ll see an elevation in blood pressure, increased anxiety, increased aggression and sleep disturbance."

"The thing is, typically, this age group is one where I could stand there and lecture until I’m blue in the face and nothing happens," Brown says. There are organizations such as HEAR - they do a much better job. You have big name rock stars and they’re telling people that they’ve damaged their hearing from the number of hours at extreme volumes. And it’s really geared towards kids. They may not know all the physiology and mechanisms behind it, but they know it goes a long way for kids to hear something from them rather than from me."

"The whole idea we’ve really got to work on is education - the younger the better. It’s hard to get through to teens, but if they have the information, then they can have a chance of making an educated choice and understand the implications of what they do."

What you can do to protect your kids!

Education: Understanding the cumulative impact of environmental noise may help motivate teens to protect themselves. Get your online kids to surf over to www.hearnet.com - a site designed for teens by a former punk rocker who suffered hearing damage.
Protection: A variety of hearing protection is available at drug stores and work supply stores. There are even special plugs for musicians that block out noise but still let you hear voices and music - just not as loud. They work for audience members, too.
Volume control: Stereos, Walkmen, TV sets and some electronic games have volume controls. Teach kids to enjoy their music and games at a lower volume. And try to get multi-taskers (those who like the TV and stereo on while they talk on the phone) to run one thing at a time - at the lowest volume possible.