Survey Says Teens Don't Care About iPod-Induced Hearing Loss
If you're looking for good long-term investment, you might want to think about pumping some of your excess funds into hearing aid companies. Yes, hearing aids -- perhaps not the first thing on your list of future boom economies, but it should be after reading the results of a new study, which shows that teens not only are aware that their iPod listening habits are damaging their hearing, but that they don't care about their hearing.
The study, out of the Netherlands, indicates that teens were receiving and processing warning messages regarding the dangers of loud volume and long earbud listening times, but that for whatever reason they weren't going to suffer from the effects later in life (described as "low personal vulnerability" in survey-speak). No doubt this is the same invincibility that teens have always felt, the same "I'm gonna live forever" mentality that makes 15-year-olds pick up smoking, despite all the well-publicized health risks.
The solution? We've reported on headphones that help to minimize damage done to ears and patents suggesting future iPods might just turn the volume down on their own should they think you've been listening too long. But you can be sure that just as copy protection of digital music downloads hasn't done a lick of good at preventing music piracy, so will any digital nagware fail at preventing kids from finding a way to turn the volume up to 11.
From Engadget
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With Sanjaya Malakar no longer the force he once was, it seems the tender eardrums of America's youth are once again safe from unnecessary harm. But sadly, that's not the case, reports NPR.
