MP3 players may cause hearing loss
Technology giveth, technology taketh away. Cellphones cause brain cancer, wearing a tattoo t-shirt will certainly end in a much deserved poser pummeling, and now…listening to your MP3 player causes hearing loss. A study by Harvard Medical School found that the in-ear-style headphones increased sound levels "by up to 9 decibels" over can-style headphones — that's the sound of normal breathing at the low-end but significant at high levels on the exponential decibel scale! Ok, so that increase alone won't shatter your drum but the study also finds these headphones inefficient at blocking out background noise providing incentive to crank it up baby, yeeeah! Harvard creds not good enough for ya? A study completed last month in Australia shows a quarter of all people surveyed listened to their "iPods at volumes that could cause long term hearing damage." Well, none of this should be a surprise — just think of how many times those Haight Street Gap workers blast their Juice Newton to avoid the incessant slur of "doses" and "sticky green buds."
