EU wants to turn down the volume
With millions at risk for hearing damage, the EU is introducing sound limits on portable music players.
Peter van Galen has been plagued by an incessant whistling noise for five years now. Perhaps ten years in Amsterdam’s noisy music industry are to blame. Or maybe it was the firework that exploded right next to his ear when he was 12. Or the iPod he uses so often. “I guess it was a combination of all three,” he ventured. Whatever the cause may have been, the sound is not going away.
Even before the buzzing sound took hold in his hearing, Van Galen co-founded Earproof, a company that sells customised earplugs.
“Whenever I’m in a quiet place, the sound comes through loud and clear. When I’m at a convention or a bar, it blends in with the background noise. But it is always there,” Van Galen said.
Van Galen has learnt to live with it. But not everybody can, he said. “It breaks people. You can find suicide notes on the internet written by people who took their own lives because they couldn’t handle it.”
Small devices cause large problems
Van Galen’s permanent hearing damage was partially caused by prolonged exposure to the sound coming out of his MP3 player. The danger these devices pose to public health has captured attention of the European Commision. Meglena Kuneva, the European commissioner for consumer protection, has proposed a legal limit on the volume emitted by portable music players, including cell phones.
MP3 players wreak their havoc on the inner ear, where the cochlea is located. The cochlea is fluid filled channel connected to the a nerve ending which transmits the sensation of sound to the brain. A buzzing sound in the ear indicates something is wrong with the hair cells. They have been damaged, but are still alive. This causes the cells to become overactive. They begin giving off constant signals to the brain, even when no sound is present.
Damage to the hair cells cannot be repaired. If one comes home after a night out with a buzzing sound in the ears and this is gone in the morning, that does not mean that the hair cells have recovered. The cells surrounding them have simply adapted to mask the problem.
Damaged hearing: how it works
The number of consumers in at risk for hearing damage caused by loud music has risen in recent years. The European commission estimates that 10 million consumers are in danger, but lacking reliable data, it admits the true number may be higher. The best statistics available date from the walkman era, when devices were unable to handle volumes in excess of 100 decibel without sound distortion. MP3 players can produce perfect sound up to 130 decibel.
Research by the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam has shown that almost a third of Dutch youth between 12 and 16 years of age regularly listen to music that is too loud. They risk permanent, irreparable, hearing loss.
The European Commission wants to do something about this threat to public health. “Especially young people remain unaware of the dangers,” Kuneva has warned. Even though the risks are evidently clear. Jan de Laat, an audiologist working at a the Leiden University Medical Centre, regularly sees young patients that complain about a whistling noise that just won’t go away and patients who have trouble hearing sounds over background noise. De Laat’s young patients are often emotionally distraught by their predicament.
Press 'OK' for maximum power
The European Union is trying to fast track new regulations for MP3 players. Kuneva’s proposal dates from September last year. By December, her officials had drafted proposed regulations, limiting the volume of portable players to 85 decibels, which will now be submitted to the member states. Users should still be able to crank their portable music players up to 100 decibels if they want to, but the device will then have to warn the user that doing so can be hazardous to hearing. The user can then confirm his choice by clicking ‘OK’.
Jos Remy, who chairs a EU task force charged with reducing citizens’ noise exposure, expects the proposed cap on sound levels to pass without much trouble. “We have only proposed specific limits at 85 and 100 decibels. Manufacturers can themselves determine how to warn their customers, before crossing the 85 decibel threshold. Software would offer the easiest solution by making the user click ‘OK’ in a menu. A warning light or a spoken voice could also do the trick however,” Remy said. He expected most trouble in the bottom end of the market, where exceedingly simple software is common and MP3 players often come without displays that could be used to flash warnings.
The new regulations should come as no surprise to the MP3 industry. The 100-decibel limit became part of French law years ago. Companies aspiring to be big players in the European market have long ago begun to conform to the 100-decibel standard, Remy explained. “Even though there are still players out there that can easily reach 115 or even 120 decibels. In-ear headphones can easily push that number up by another 7 or 9 decibels,” he said.
'I'll go deaf anyway'
Clear European regulations would be in the manufacturers’ interests, since they allow them to produce a single product up to standards in the entire European market. “Hard hearing customers are not in manufacturers interest either,” Remy said. If the new legislation is passed this year, as Remy expects, it will probably go into effect one or two years from now rather than take three years, which is more common for European legislation.
If the quick implementation succeeds, it will be a testament to the EU’s potential for speedy action. Whether it will reduce the risk of permanent hearing damage, however, is a different matter. Ineke Vogel, a medical scientist who wrote her dissertation on the music-listening behaviour of young people, voiced some reservations. “I doubt whether a warning button on an MP3-player will do a lot of good for young people that listen music a lot,” she said. “I fear a lot of young people will simply press ‘OK’ and continue going about their business. Most young people know that loud music is harmful, but they think they don’t listen to it long enough to make a difference. Also, a lot of at youngster have a nonchalant attitude about the future. They think they’ll become deaf with age anyway.”
Playing a MP-player too loud once should not lead to immediate hearing damage, (see graph) but most young people audiologist Jan de Laat sees as patients, have been regularly exposed to blasting music over a longer period of time. “I commonly see people that turn their MP3 player up too loud all day, and then visit concerts and night clubs on weekends as well.”
Also, the risk of hearing damage is unpredictable. “The same as with smoking,” De Laat said. “Some smoke two packs a day and live to be a 100. Some don’t smoke at all and die of lung cancer at age 70. Some people are simply more sensitive to hearing damage than others.”