Is Your Teenager Courting the Possibility of Needing a Hearing Aid?

May 16
08:41

2012

Antoinette Ayana

Antoinette Ayana

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As a parent, it is your responsibility to make sure your teenager is not subjecting themselves to danger. With the concept of wearing headphones for hours on end being a popular one among teenagers, experts are worried that these individuals could be wearing a hearing aid well before their natural ears should give out.

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As a parent,Is Your Teenager Courting the Possibility of Needing a Hearing Aid? Articles it is your responsibility to make sure your teenager is not subjecting themselves to danger. While you may be vigilant about ensuring they wear sunscreen at the beach and get to the dentist every six months, how much attention are you paying to the volume at which they listen to music. Sure, you may be constantly telling them to turn down the stereo, but that's probably more for your benefit than theirs. What about their iPod? With the concept of wearing headphones for hours on end being a popular one among teenagers, experts are worried that these individuals could be wearing a hearing aid well before their natural ears should give out.

According to recent studies conducted by the Journal of the American Medical Association, auditory loss among adolescents is accelerating at an alarming rate. To put it into concrete terms, it has increased 30% in the time period between 1988-1994 and 2005-2006. This is a huge jump and it means that 20% of teenagers now suffer from some degree of noise-related damage. While these teenagers may not be quite ready for a hearing aid, it's important to remember that this kind of damage is progressive and will not stop in its tracks if behaviors don't change.

Experts aren't willing to say that headphone use is to blame for all of the increase, but there is certainly a correlation. Certainly it can be said that most of the increase is due to noise damage, and listening to personal music devices is one of the most obvious culprits. You don't see a large percentage of teenagers at the gun range day in and day out, after all, or working construction. You do see a great many listening to music at unsafe volumes, however.

This is one of those tricky situations where you will find it nearly impossible to impart the gravity of the situation to your teen. While you can get through to some teenagers that wearing a seat belt can save their lives, it's much more difficult to teach them that listening to their MP3 player at an unsafe level could lead to needing a hearing aid at the age of 40. The human mind develops in such a way that makes it difficult to prepare for such a thing. It's common knowledge that many teenagers believe themselves immortal. How seriously can they really take progressive auditory loss? This is why you need to do their thinking for them. Enforce listening limits, monitor volumes, and make sure your kid isn't doing damage he will regret in the future.