On the street, on the bus, on the train, on airplanes, in line at the grocery store-everywhere you go, people are sure to be wearing headphones attached to portable music devices.
While the government hasn’t yet outlawed people from listening to bad music (consider yourself lucky, Kanye West), lawmakers are considering legislation that would regulate the volume at which you can listen to those tunes.
Government officials in the European Union are preparing a proposal that could ensure that mp3 player manufacturers takemeasures to properly educate consumers about the risks associated with prolonged exposure to loud music, particularly via headphones and earbuds. Apple has already implemented measures such as including messages with products warning that, “permanent hearing loss may occur if earphones or headphones are used at high volume.”
Other measures could include programming players so that the default setting is 80 decibels (although users could still manually change this to a higher level if desired).
According to EU’s Consumer Affairs commissioner, most players currently reach a maximum volume of 80 to 115 decibels. To put those number in perspective, consider that the noise produced by a jet taking off is rated at 120 decibels.
Hopefully listeners will turn things down a notch to preserve their hearing. Wouldn’t you feel a bit silly being deaf because you were blasting “Poker Face”? Doesn’t really seem worth it.
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