My voyage through dorm rooms as a college student has dumped me in highly variable environments. From a mod to the hotel-like Read Hall and back down the ladder to Gamertsfelder -no matter how different the setting, I always counted on one constant to make me feel at home: loud music and lots of it.
Nothing has tested my limits more than bass boosting notes pounding the walls, no, shaking my room, at 2 a.m. I spent a miserable first quarter at Ohio University putting up with thunderous music I'd never heard, nor wished to hear. But no matter how vehement my plea for silence, the more ignorant the perpetrators became of their problem.
A couple days ago, I had a vicious flashback to freshman year. As I was scrambling to finish a project in Alden Library, another student came and occupied the desk next to mine. My new neighbor was listening to music. The problem was he was making me listen to it, too.
The option ran through my head -as it had many other times I'd faced this problem -of kindly telling him to turn down the volume. Immobile, I vainly tried to resume progress. Soon accompanying the noise was a head bob, then a pulse-throbbing shake of my desk, computer monitor and nerves as his foot tapped in rhythm. The music sounded like the crackle of an unreceptive TV channel, and I wanted nothing more than to pull the plug.
Instead, I moved to another desk.
What angers me now isn't the loud-music lover's blatant disregard of consideration or the fact that the tunes were distasteful. I'm angry because more is at stake here than my nerves. I don't wanna be forced out of my seat because of this headphone noise epidemic ever again.
A Feb. 2 Post article Rising MP3 player use might decrease social interaction (http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/N.php?article=N5&date=020205) recently took a stab at headphone use on campus. I'm not concerned about the social environment of this campus; it always seems to take care of itself. What does concern me is how mindless some young adults are in making the decision to ruin their hearing.
Are we ever not listening to anything? According to the United States Safety and Health Standards, people in working environments should not be exposed to more than 90 decibels over a period of eight hours. Yet many of the sounds we hear every day are above this level, including high headphone volume at 100 decibels.
No more than 15 minutes exposure to 100 decibels is recommended by The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders(NIDCD) (http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/hearing/ruler.asp). Many others like my library friend will have their headphones plastered on for hours while reading, eating and exercising without considering for a moment that what they're doing is harmful.
Because we're never listening to music in a completely quiet environment, wearing closed-ear headphones increases the risk of damage to the ear. The normal sound level on a busy street is 80 decibels and drowning out that noise by cranking up the volume desensitizes your ears to sound levels over time, according to HeadWize.com (http://www.headwize.com/articles/hearing_art.htm). But if we are uncontrollably exposed to noises much louder than music (subways, motorcycles, jet planes), should we even care?
Maybe I'm more sensitive to this issue because I'm not a loud-music lover. In fact, I'm pretty sensitive to noise. I would even venture to say that I'm oversensitive. (This could be considered an exceptional trait had it not led to restless family vacations because of snoring, disagreements over TV volume and the incessant ticking of grandfather clocks placed strategically in quiet rooms in my house.)
Lucky for you on-the-go music listeners (and me), the problem is easily remedied. It may be painful at first, but I promise you'll thank me when you can still hear at age 80 without a hearing aide. I'm about to share with you the key to ensuring healthy ears for both you and the audience you didn't know you had. Are you listening?
Turn down the volume.
-Caren Baginski is a junior journalism major. Read her companion article online at The Post Online or send her an e-mail at caren.baginski@ohiou.edu.
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