Inciting Our Children to Turn Their Music Down: The AYE Concept Proposal

Abstract

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 1.1 billion people are currently at risk of losing their hearing due to excessive exposure to noise. Of this, a significant proportion consists of children, youth and young adults who are exposing themselves to excessive levels of sound through various leisure activities (music players, concerts, movies at the theatre, dance clubs, etc.). To address this issue, many approaches have been developed, ranging from general awareness messages to volume limiters on personal music players. Nevertheless, it seems that, as with all dangerous behaviors, the most promising approach is a direct one in which a personalized assessment of the risk has been made and the person is made aware of the associated detrimental consequences. The present paper describes a counseling approach whereby the sound exposure is associated with an increased loss of hearing sensitivity. The proposed “Age of Your Ears (AYE)” metric is computed using the ISO 1999 multiregression model and predicts for a given age and a given sound exposure the resulting accelerated aging of the person’s hearing. Preliminary results from pilot studies and focus groups with youths will be presented together with the underlying mathematical and statistical foundations.