From Our Partners
Ijaz Shaikh | Marketing Coordinator, HearingLife Canada Ltd.
New Technology Is Changing
How We Listen and Hear
National Affiliated Partners
An inescapable feature of modern life is noise pollution: the nearly constant
exposure to sound, much of which borders on or exceeds safe hearing levels.
One of the ways many people try to cope is by wearing headphones. While
headphones can help block noise pollution, using them safely requires some care
while listening.
Given the ubiquity of earbuds and
other audio products in the lives of
consumers, audio companies have
developed technologies to help
make their products safer. Some
companies design their products
to comply with international
standards for safe listening, limiting
maximum volume, for instance, to
100dB. Many others feature active
noise cancellation to fi lter out noise
and allow users to listen at lower
volumes. While earbuds are popular
on the go, on-ear headphones are
recommended over in-ear devices.
Earbuds sit in the ear canal, close
to the eardrum. On-ear headphones
give the eardrum a greater distance
from the sound source.
In fact, the devices themselves
are becoming tools to help users
track and maintain healthy hearing.
Some limit ‘acoustic shock’ created
by spikes in sound, using controls
to prevent average daily sound
exposure from exceeding eighty-
fi ve decibels. Others monitor and
visually display ambient noise in
decibels in real time and can send a
notifi cation if sound starts to reach
harmful levels — there’s also an
option to make the high-volume
notice a popup window that stops
the audio stream and doesn’t restart
until the user clicks okay. It’s just
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one more step users can take to
protect their hearing. Some devices
can be controlled via a smartphone
app. Wearers can use these apps to
tune the sound of their headphones,
track their daily hearing, measure
duration and volume — even
program reminders to take a break
from all that listening.
So what does the future of this
technology hold? Sound therapy
apps are already in use, including
ones that claim to help with tinnitus
or ringing in the ear, which aff ects
about twenty per cent of people.
Hearing aids using Bluetooth
wireless technology cannot only
be tuned and controlled with a
smartphone app but can directly link
to audio sources in equipped movie
theatres and museums, or at home
to TVs and stereo systems.
And the best may be yet to come.
Scientists have proposed using
miniature wearable cameras in
ordinary eyeglasses to aid hearing
with artifi cial intelligence–assisted
lip-reading. And as billionaires
Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg
explore brain–computer interfaces
that will allow people to directly
send thoughts to each other or
to machines, researchers believe
brainwave monitoring could help
computerized hearing aids identify a
wearer’s focus of attention and tune
microphones to that sound source
while fi ltering out others.
In the meantime, the best
approach is to protect your hearing:
listen at safe volumes, monitor your
exposure to loud noise, and get your
hearing tested regularly. ●
HearingLife and its Network Partners
have over three hundred clinics
across the nation. Your membership
with ARTA makes you and members
of your household eligible to receive
exclusive benefi ts to help you on
your path to better hearing.
Contact HearingLife toll-free at
1-844-284-7414.