Ronaldo Lemos: the ringing in the ear brings a message – 10/15/2023 – Ronaldo Lemos

It’s not just vision that is burdened by technology. The ears are too. In the last eight years, searches for ringing in the ears (“tinnitus”) on Google have exploded. Searches for “ear protector” and “noise cancellation”, mapped on Google Trends, also grew.

All this hyperactivity also appears in numbers. One of Apple’s most profitable products is the Airpods wireless headphones. The company has been selling about 20 million of them per quarter. Alone they generate revenue of US$14.5 billion annually (R$73.22 billion), more than the combined revenue of Spotify and Twitter. By the time you read this text, there will be around 100 million people with a pair of Airpods in their ears. Maybe you are one of them.

The ear is our most intimate sense. Listening to a good podcast generates a feeling of intimacy that no other medium can provide. After all, audio has a very high emotional resolution, unlike video.

But this also increases the problem of overload. The more intense the sounds, the less we should be exposed to them. The noise of a busy cafe (90 decibels) is only safely tolerated for up to four hours. A club or concert can generate 115 decibels. At this level, seven minutes of exposure is enough for there to be the possibility of damage.

In today’s world, we have completely lost control of our sound environment, whether at home, at work or in public environments. This loss of control is the impetus for the search for plugs, headphones, and noise-cancelling technologies. Created in the 1950s to reduce cabin noise for airline pilots, today they are everywhere. They are one of the differentiators of Apple Airpods. You put the earphone in your ear, and it miraculously reduces ambient noise, creating individual acoustic isolation.

As the science columnist for The Guardian newspaper, Donna Lu, points out, multiple studies show that the constant use of plugs can also cause ringing in the ears. On Apple’s own website there is a discussion forum on whether using Airpods is causing ringing in the ears. There are several reports and more than 2,800 people agreeing that the problem applies to them.

Interestingly, the headphone and hearing aid industry appears to be experiencing a moment of convergence. For example, the popular Sennheiser headphone brand is owned by Sonova, a manufacturer of hearing aids and cochlear implants. Apple itself markets its Airpods as being able to be used for hearing aids. The impression is left of a kind of poison-medicine: a kind of chocolate laxative, in which chocolate causes constipation that can be improved by the laxative.

Although there are advances today in several topics related to well-being, nutrition and mental health, hearing health remains alarmingly on the periphery of our collective consciousness. For those who have ringing in their ears, it is worth remembering that it brings with it a message: not to let our negligence and carelessness, as individuals or as a society, lead us down the path of irreversible silence.

It’s over the naked ear

Already the predominance of headphones

It’s coming the predominance of hearing aids

LINK PRESENT: Did you like this text? Subscribers can access five free accesses from any link per day. Just click the blue F below.