Transcript:
What we want to do is make sure that the public understands the damage from excessive noise and the damage that can be caused to hearing.
After you've worn your MP3 player all day long or a considerable amount during the day you may find that your hearing sounds muffled when you take them off in the evening or that you have ringing in the ear, which is called tinnitus. These are two early warning signs that you may have exposed your hearing to excessively loud noise.
It doesn't matter what the source is; if the decibel volume is sufficiently loud enough – over 85 decibels – you can potentially be giving yourself a noise-induced hearing loss. So whether it's classical music or a jackhammer, if the decibel level is sufficiently loud enough you can be giving yourself a permanent hearing loss.
The earphones that are purchased with the devices are easy to use and fit most ears rather comfortably, but they don't isolate the sound that you want to hear from the ambient or background noise that you don't want to hear. So if you're standing on a noisy street corner listening to a song that you enjoy, your tendency is to turn up the volume to get on top of the traffic noise. So you can upgrade your earphone to a more sound isolating earphone.
