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Hearing Aids Are Changing. Their Users Are, Too.
As more young people risk hearing loss, over-the-counter hearing aids are providing new options, but also confusing choices.
Ayla Wing's middle school students don't always know what to make of their 26-year-old teacher's hearing aids. The most common response she hears: "Oh, my grandma has them, too."
But grandma's hearing aids were never like this: Bluetooth-enabled and connected to her phone, they allow Ms. Wing to toggle with one touch between custom settings. She can shut out the world during a screeching subway ride, hear her friends in noisy bars during a night out and even understand her students better by switching to "mumbly kids."
A raft of new hearing aids have hit the market in recent years, offering greater appeal to a generation of young adults that some experts say is both developing hearing problems earlier in life and — perhaps paradoxically — becoming more comfortable with an expensive piece of technology pumping sound into their ears.
Some of the new models, including Ms. Wing's, are made by traditional prescription brands, which usually require a visit to a specialist. But the Food and Drug Administration opened up the market last year when it allowed the sale of hearing aids over the counter. In response, brand names like Sony and Jabra began releasing their own products, adding to the new wave of designs and features that appeal to young consumers.
"These new hearing aids are sexy," said Pete Bilzerian, a 25-year-old in Richmond, Va., who has worn the devices since he was 7. He describes his early models as distinctly unsexy: "big, funky, tan-colored hearing aids with the molding that goes all around the ear." But increasingly, those have given way to sleeker, smaller models with more technological capabilities.
Nowadays, he said, no one seems to notice the electronics in his ear. "If it ever does come up as a topic, I just brush it off and say, 'Hey, I got these very expensive AirPods.'"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Wednesday May 10, @08:52PM (3 children)
> Hey, I got these very expensive AirPods.
Is this also the explanation to as to why young people would need hearing aids? To much AirPods and headphones on all the time as they play around with their phones? The upside I guess is that they don't need to get used to them, just plop them in and it's just like before.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11, @03:03AM
Yeah. I remember some kids with worse hearing than me and I was like 2-3 decades older than them. They used earphones to listen to music a lot and high volumes too (loud enough for me to hear it while I'm not that near to them).
How we found out was they had to set the volume much higher to hear stuff when we were using some audio gear. I'm like whoa you bunch are going deaf already and some of you are not even 20.
The other cause could be nightclubs (and later cinemas - they make the effects hearing damage loud but the conversations mumbly[1]) - the sound volume in those places are too high. At around that time I was already using some flattish response earplugs to protect my ears in such environments - they cut about 20dB. Also recommended such stuff to some kid musicians (and their parents) especially those who were playing the drums, but to no avail.
[1] https://www.slashfilm.com/673162/heres-why-movie-dialogue-has-gotten-more-difficult-to-understand-and-three-ways-to-fix-it/ [slashfilm.com]
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday May 11, @03:51AM
My hearing is great, but my audio language decoding is limited. I can't understand people who mumble, or who talk over other people or loud background noise. Maybe I should try some of these.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2, Informative) by UncleBen on Thursday May 11, @01:36PM
No.
You can benefit from hearing aids for a LOT of reasons not related to noise exposure. You can benefit from hearing aids for high-noise exposure not related to ear-bud/headphone (mis)use.
Making hearing aids more available is a huge improvement. But do get a pro's advice, do not self-medicate here. Costco is CHEAP, they'll test and offer at least some advice for free. And check your (USian) health care, they might do the test/reading for free or bare minimum cost.