Ear phones are worn snugly as people carrying portable music players walk past her everywhere she goes day in and day out. It is not something to buzz about says an iPod user for studying or exercise who happens to be a senior at Chicago University. For their age group there are numerous cases of lost hearing they are not aware of. As said by the researchers themselves, the trend attributed to devices like portable music players that are attached to the ears only worsen the problem.

Referring to these devices and their usage, an Indiana university's director of clinical education in audiology comments on how today's situation is worse than the past. No longer ideal for when you jog, full day listening is now being done. According to him, what he sees is young bodies but senior ears. On a random group of students, he and his colleagues ran some tests and they found out that a number of them already had a loss of hearing that can be attributed to noise. Normally, it would mean that the person cannot hear higher frequencies well enough but this can easily translate into mild ringing in the ears or even problems encountered with regard to not being able to go through a conversation when there is noise.

Aside from more pronounced tinnitus, there are a number of 30 to 40 year olds seen by specialists who have developed a whooshing sound or buzzing not to mention internal ringing in their ears. In his dealings with people from this particular age group, the tip of the iceberg is what the director of a hearing center at a children's hospital in Houston is seeing. Having more of these cases will not prove to be shocking.

When noise induced hearing loss occurs, a person may have been involved with the use of power tools or firearms or he may just have been in a noisy concert or club. There is now a new purpose for headphones according to the doctors and this is not only for music alone but also to avoid the ambient sounds from the streets as well as public transport vehicles. And all of it can contribute to hearing loss.

Manifesting hearing loss problems can happen without warning. Before you know, it may take a lot of exposures as well as a number of years, as said by an otologist from Minnesota. There is some form of damage when your ears start to ring after you are exposed to a noisy area. An important aspect for the partial recovery of hearing is resting, as doctors say. Continuous exposure can be the cause for damage to the hairs in the inner ear though and these are necessary for you to hear.

With his task force on children and hearing, an audiologist from a Northern Colorado university mentioned how rechargeable batteries are to blame for people listening to their portable music players longer leaving their ears with zero rest time. If that was not enough people turn the volume up so loud that ears are damaged. Based from the survey published during the summer by the national acoustic laboratories, 25 percent of portable music player users have excessive daily exposure to noise that could lead to hearing loss. Other research efforts this time by Britain's royal national institute for deaf people determined that those aged from 18 to 24 are more prone to going over the safe listening limits.

How do you know when it's too much? She says a good rule of thumb comes from a study published in December where researchers at a children's hospital in Boston determined that listening to a portable music player with headphones at 60 percent of its potential volume for one hour a day is relatively safe. Experts also recommend protecting hearing in other ways standing away from loud speakers and using hearing protection when using machinery at work, home or for recreation.

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