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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 sjames on Thursday May 11, @03:46PM
I really couldn't tell you. As a teen, I certainly liked music louder than adults around did, but there were limits. I did not like it distorted. Even at the most extreme, you couldn't hear a car going by outside when you were inside if the windows were closed. By my 20's I found music that made it hard to talk normally to someone annoying except in a concert setting.
But the very loudest my friends and I ever listened to music isn't even on the same scale as the boom cars. I actually sat in one of those once. Every surface in the car felt like it was coated in oil and vision was blurry due to vibration of the eyeballs. Even breathing felt a little off. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I think I was about 25 at that time. I'm not convinced that it's safe to operate a motor vehicle under those conditions.
There's going to be a lot of middle aged people with severe hearing impairment.