This week (4th to 10th February 2013) is Tinnitus Awareness Week and Action on Hearing Loss are holding events across the UK to highlight the effect that tinnitus has on people’s lives and how listening to Loud Music can lead to tinnitus and hearing loss.
Portishead’s Adrian Utley is backing their campaign during Tinnitus Awareness Week warning people of the dangers of tinnitus. He said: ‘I love listening to and playing music, always have, and usually really loudly. I now have mild hearing loss in both ears and it is a complete drag – probably not as bad as tinnitus – but makes things difficult. I wish I had known or even thought about the consequences of all the things I did like listening to music on headphones in noisy vans and cranking it up, playing loud guitar with really harsh sounds and no ear protection.
‘It’s a good idea to get good ear plugs in loud situations like gigs whether you’re playing or listening – you’ll get used to them. And noise cancelling headphones are really good for listening to music when background noise is high, like in planes and trains etc. Be careful because when your hearing’s gone – it’s gone.’
Their new research shows that 79% of young people surveyed are unaware of a new standard coming into force this month meaning that all new personal music players in the EU should have a safe maximum default volume of 85 decibels (dB), and that 40% said they would override the new default setting on their music devices.
Follow the link to read further details of the survey and for ways to protect your hearing. http://www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk/your-hearing/tinnitus/tinnitus-awareness-week.aspx
Details of the survey have also been reported by BBC News Health and can be found at: