According a recent study of US national health data, your average teen today doesn’t hear as well as their Gen-X counterparts.
Teenagers with hearing loss (and we mean not just ignoring your parents) grew by a third between between 1988-1994 and 2005-2006. Back when Guns n’ Roses were in heavy rotation on teen Walkmans, 15% of 12-19 year-olds suffered some kind of hearing impairment, now that percentage is 19.5%.
But for once, iPods are not found to blame. A team who studied data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and published findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that music may not be the only thing that can be damaging kids ears.
Other salient factors include diet and nutrition and environmental factors such as exposure to toxins. Poverty also plays a role, researchers found that kids in lower-income families without adequate nutrition may have problems in auditory system development.
The iPod has been accused of hearing loss off and on since its 2001 debut. This probably won’t be the first or last time it is implicated in hearing loss or impairment.
Rock on?
Via Time
