A Tinnitus Epidemic is the Awful Sound of Hearing impaired America
If your ears are ringing, you know what I’m talking about.
There is an epidemic of tinnitus. Millions of people hear a ringing or rumbling in their ears with greater frequency than before. Some studies estimate that 15% of people worldwide suffer from tinnitus.
I have tinnitus. My ears simulate the low hum and rumble of the Starship Enterprise, all the time. I have a ringing in my ears, too. I wear a hearing aid due to a defect from birth. I have one good ear, and it’s not really that good. The other ear is 90% deaf, but it hears my shaver better than my good ear. And I wear a headset while talking to customers at work.
I’m a techie. My job is to fix software that monitors and provides remote access to very large data storage systems. I use Zoom 5 days a week. During these meetings, some people are loud, some people are quiet. Some people like their notifications from Outlook to be loud. Some of them work from home. They have kids playing, dogs barking, or an argument in the next room.
I don’t listen to music at work over my headphones. The reason is that I can’t objectively measure the volume of the sound in my ears. I have to use some other device, some other measuring stick to determine just how loud things are in there. And if I can’t do that, then I…
