It’s hard to be hip when your charity’s name includes the words “Royal Institute” and your president is the Rt. Hon. Lord Jack Ashley of Stoke, CH, but the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) is bravely giving it a go with their “Don’t Lose the Music” campaign. They want young people to get the message: listening to your iPod can make you deaf.
The group claims that 58 percent of UK citizens between the ages of 16 and 30 are “completely unaware of any risk to their hearing” from listening to MP3 players at high volumes for long periods of time. The RNID is calling on device manufacturers to include more explicit and obvious warnings on their packaging about the potential dangers of long-term use. The group is particularly concerned about MP3 players that are used to drown out background noise such as that found on a subway or bus, since such usage requires the player to be jacked up to higher-than-normal levels in order to hear the music.
At least “Ian from Glasgow” has gotten the message. “Sometimes I don’t realize how high I’ve got my MP3 player—I think it’s not that loud,” he said, “and then I go to turn it up and realize it’s already at the top, so either I’ve already gone deaf a bit or I’ve just got used to it.”
To spread the word, the RNID was at Victoria Station on Monday, using a special noise meter to test people’s MP3 player volume. (No word yet on how successful the “The Don’t Lose the Music Squad” was at raising awareness; we suspect that Victoria Station travelers who saw a “squad” coming toward them with a probe were probably not excited about the experience.)
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