Maximise Your Portable Media Players

You don't want to go deaf, do you?

It is possible for you to gain control over this 'monster' of your music player and avoid hearing damage and learning and memory impairments. In order to tackle such disastrous effects, you may take some preautionary measures and remember, spread the word!

1. Control Your Use of Earphones.

1. At 80% volume, use media players for only ninety minutes a day.
2. At 70% however, you may use it for about 4 1/2 hours a day.
3. It will be most favourable for you to use them for only 1 hour a day at below 60% of the maximum volume
4. By lowering the volume further, you can increase the time period.
5. If prolonged usage is required, take 5 minute breaks every hour to allow your ears some time to recover.
6. When at home, you may choose to use speakers instead.

If you have a field of grass and you walk on it, you compress the grass and it bends down over the night, and in a few days, it springs back up and is ok again. But if you keep doing that over and over, you wear a path in it. And that's kind of what happens with hearing loss.
- Les Blomberg, executive director of Noise Pollution

2. Choice of Earphones

1. Larger earphones which rest over the ear opening are recommended.
2. Use of sound-isolating earphones which cancel out background noises, allowing you to listen to your music without hearing your sister blaring on the phone or your dad listening to the football game at maximum volume with all his noisy friends.
3. Invest in good quality earphones.

3. See The Doctor

1. This is the only way to determine the sensitivity of your hearing and to what extent it has been damaged.
2. Get the doctor to clean your ears for you every once in a while, in case of bacteria growth.
3. Learn more about your genes as former hearing loss in the family will mean you are more prone to it.

4. Maintain Good Earphone Hygiene

1. Clean your earphones frequently using alcohol on cotton balls.
2. Change earphone cushions at regular intervals.
3. You could try using disposable earphone hygiene covers (buds).

5. Download and Purchase Legally

1. Make a conscious effort to download songs or buy albums legally, at least for your favourite artists.
2. Turn off your P2P file sharingPeer-to-peer sharing within a network or software which allows users to exchange files with one another. systems and reduce the number of times you send audio or video files over to your friends.

Acknowledgements:

1. Alice Park on preventing hearing loss in teens. (14th March 2009)
2. Ear Help(UK)'s article on Whether earphones indeed damage our hearing. (14th March 2009)
3. Practicon for source of disposable earbuds.(14th March 2009)