iPods Make You Deaf And Other Fun Health Warnings
from the exaggerating-the-obvious dept
It's not entirely clear why everyone likes to pick on the iPod, but its popularity seems to attract all sorts of odd warnings about the evilness that is the iPod. In the past, there have been warnings about how iPods are a security risk and a beacon to muggers. The latest, though, is that audiologists are warning that the iPod will make you deaf. Of course, while it sounds alarming, basically they're just saying that loud noises, directly in your ear are a risk. They always have been, from the days of the transistor radio with an earpiece to the walkman. However, how many stories are there of people who are now deaf for listening to their walkmans too loud?
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iPods are in fact louder
http://www.macobserver.com/article/2004/07/21.5.shtml
http://www.capsgetpeeled.com/blog/archives /000198.html
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Let them go deaf
http://www.sean-davidson.com/articles/deaf_to_the_dangers.html
"Dr. Cheesman says technological changes have made our lives, and our free time, a lot louder. "It could be a leaf blower, it could be a Walkman or jet skis, snowmobiles, dirt bikes, arcades," she says. "Thirty years ago you had to go out to a concert to really get blasted, now we do it to ourselves on a regular basis."
Doctors say hearing loss, once caused mainly by age or disease, is now increasingly self-inflicted. But because the damage is so gradual, and because most adults don't get tested until middle age, a problem can get quite bad before it's noticed.
Warning signs such as tinnitus, a sometimes permanent ringing or whooshing in the ears, often go unheeded, say doctors. As nerve cells in the ear die off, sufferers lose their hearing, starting with high-frequency sounds, such as voices."
Since Mike is so obsessed with the music industry now, maybe he will obsess over the hearing aid industry later on.
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