14 DAY TRIAL // A new legislative initiative circulated by the European Commission (EC) suggests that all newly manufactured mp3 players to be sold in Europe should have a built-in, removable noise limit. The idea is meant to safeguard people from their own bad listening habits, as well as to spare travelers in public transportation vehicles from having to hear what goes on in someone else's headphones. Listening to music for many hours at strong volumes can permanently damage hearing, health experts warn.
The EC announced that it made this recommendation after a recent scientific study showed that about one in ten music-player users was at risk of suffering from permanent hearing loss. Still, the legislators had no way of making the limit permanent, so their plan states that, if a user wants to skip the factory settings and take off the noise limit, he or she can do so at will, the BBC News reports. The recent survey also discovered that between 50 and 100 million people in Europe listened to portable music devices each day.
Over a five-year period, listening to music at high volumes for more than one hour per day can lead to permanent damage, the same document states. Naturally, the large majority of the people listening to music on its headphones does so for more than one hour per day. Keeping the volume in check is not always easy, especially when one's favorite song plays. There were no volume label indicators on headphones, music players or mobile phones in the European Union at the moment, the EC said.
“It is easy to push up the sound levels on your mp3 player to damagingly loud levels, especially on busy streets or public transport. The evidence is that particularly young people – who are listening to music at high volumes sometimes for hours each week – have no idea they can be putting their hearing at risk,” Meglena Kuneva, who is the EU Consumer Affairs commissioner, added.
“It can take years for the hearing damage to show, and then it is simply too late. These standards make small technical changes to players so that by default, normal use is safe. If consumers chose [sic] to override the default settings they can, but there will be clear warnings so they know the risks they are taking,” she concluded.