How to Protect your Child from Noise-induced Hearing Loss
By Ester Hilmarsdóttir, Editor, ONANOFF
Kids today know how to swipe screens before they can even talk. In addition, the increasing use of devices has led to more sound exposure from an early age. In the past, loudspeakers were more common and it was easier to manage the volume as the entire household knew of the loudness. Today, kids are often using headphones and earphones, so it's more challenging to monitor just how loud the volume is since the adults can’t hear the sound level.
Hearing damage is permanent and can impact kids' social and educational skills. When we are exposed to harmful noise and sounds that are too loud or last a long time, sensitive structures in our inner ear can be damaged, causing noise-induced hearing loss. Noise-induced hearing loss is cumulative, invisible, permanent and can be obtained from overexposure to loud noises. It's cumulative because the condition will only get worse over time. It's invisible because the damage is gradual over time, so it could go unnoticed until it's too late. And it's permanent because we can't "heal" our hearing. Researchers who study hearing loss have found that a person who is exposed to noise levels higher than 85 decibels for a prolonged period of time is at risk of hearing loss. Children are exposed to dangerous levels of noise on a regular basis, and many devices that children use have noise levels much higher than 85 decibels. For example, an MP3 player at maximum level is roughly 105 decibels. That's 100 times more intense than 85 decibels.
Children seem to be running their hearing mileage clock much faster than we did before. This impact on hearing is a mix of the time kids spend using devices and their volume. Not only are adult headphones able to generate high volumes, exposure time is much greater with things such as having endless content being played on YouTube. It's all about cumulative sound exposure over time. According to the WHO, 85dB can be safe for listening up to 8 hours, while listening to 94dB volume can be safe for less than 2 hours. Overall, the use of headphones isn't an issue. It's all about choosing the right pair of headphones for your child. Children tend to maximise the volume when listening, so regulating sound exposure is vital to keeping their hearing safe. BuddyPhones use a built-in, always on, sound control circuit to cap the volume at levels recommended for children by the World Health Organization.
BuddyPhones founder and CEO, Pétur Ólafsson, started working on ear-buds for adults, when a friend gave him the idea of making headphones for kids, as she couldn’t find any reliable headphones for her children. Since Pétur was already working on adult ear-buds, he used his research to create the very first BuddyPhones, designed specially for children with their safety in mind. Pétur quickly noticed that the market was driven by products that were more like toys than audio products, or they were products made for adults and simply called children's headphones. The market was missing a tailor-made solution for kids, a safe solution that includes a lifestyle that serves kids in the best way possible. Truly putting children at the heart of the brand is how ONANOFF and BuddyPhones were born, as a dedicated audio brand for children, education and safety.
