Music-mad youth risk hearing damage

Friday 07 November 2008

Hearing problems among young people are increasing with 120,000 already experiencing difficulty and an additional 20,000 new cases every year of damage caused by excessively loud music, reports Friday’s Volkskrant.

According to hearing specialist Jan de Laat of the Leiden University Medical Centre, more and more young people are being referred to hospital with hearing difficulties with the result that a ‘problem generation’ is emerging.

And he warns that once the damage has been done, it cannot be repaired. ‘In the past people did not turn up their Walkmans too high because the sound would become distorted but with the current MP3 players the sound is good even at 130 decibels.

And that’s how loud people sometimes have them,’ says De Laat. To draw attention to the problem, the national hearing foundation asked six DJs from the popular pop station 3FM to check their hearing levels.

The result indicated that all six have damaged hearing. Two have serious problems, including Paul Rabbering (29). ‘He has the ears of a 75 year old,’ De Laat told the paper.

© DutchNews.nl

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