Are people living at higher volume these days?

I’ve been mostly deaf almost my entire life. My right ear has about a 90% hearing loss. My left ear picked up the slack just fine until I hit my late 50s and it started to fail. Now I have about a 50% loss in it.

I got hearing aids. The first time I wore them, I told the audiologist that I was hearing a buzzing noise. He thought for a moment, then opened the door to his office and the buzzing got louder. I was hearing the traffic going past on the freeway, which I was apparently unable to hear at all before.

Now that I have the hearing aids, all I can say is that the world is an incredibly noisy place.

I don’t know what you are talking about. What was that? Speak up. Geez, you’re so quiet.

Oh geez, then I have to post after the deaf guy.