Headphones

Natasha Hicks

September 19, 2014

   In this day and age headphones have become a way of life, especially amongst our youth. In the article, "Against Headphones" by Virginia Heffernan, she clearly expresses her distain for headphones. This is not because of her own personal dislike, but rather because of their health risk to teenagers in our society. Heffernan uses a study from " The Journal of American Medical Association" to support her argument. She states how teenagers exhibit slight hearing loss due to excessive headphone usage.  

    Heffernan states that teenagers can't make out consonant like T's, K's or even "the plinking of rain drops". According to Heffernan"the number of teenagers with hearing loss-from slight to sever - has jumped 33 percent since 1994. Heffernan contributes this hearing loss to excessive use of media players; and the volume at which they are played. Headphones were originally used to drown out outside noises and or interferences.

    The article states "maybe the danger of digital culture to young people is not that they have hummingbird attention spans but that they are going deaf". This argument is convincing but bassed on the hearing loss fact, none of the research is in correlation to their attention span

    In contrast to Heffernan's argument about all headphones causing hearing loss, one should question if it is these new ear buds that are causing the damage. Heffernan mentions that the hearing loss jump was 33 percent since 1994 which she attributes to extensive iPod usage and the change of headphone style.

    Like Heffernan I do believe prolonged use of headphones can and will produce hearing loss but this was not her early point. At the end of her article she says that adults should allow children to listen to their music aloud which would allow them to hear and watch what the child hears; and vice versa. This implys that her concern for our youth is more than just their hearing.