Friday, July 13, 2007

Baby boomers feeling after-effects of rock lifestyle

That is, they appear to be going deaf at an alarming rate:
About one in six boomers have hearing loss, according to the Better Hearing Institute, a nonprofit educational group. The AARP has reported that there are more people age 45 to 64 with hearing loss (10 million) than there are people over 65 with hearing loss (9 million). And more people are losing their hearing earlier in life, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, one of the National Institutes of Health.
One positive outcome of all this is that hearing aids are going more stylish than the bubble-gum-wads of yore. Sadly, I fear that the generation *after* the boomers, which pretty much grew up with headphones on, may have even starker effects; we'll have to see if they're any wiser than their parents. Earplugs, anybody?

(via Follow Me Here)

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