Why don’t hearing aids–basically a very loud speaker stuck right in your ear (just like headphones, which are BAD BAD BAD, right? Doggone kids and their rock and roll music…)–make you more deaf than you already are?
I mean, if exposure to loud noises causes hearing loss … and then, since you can’t hear as well, you make everything around you louder … wouldn’t that cause more hearing loss … which would make you have to turn up your hearing aid even more … which would cause more hearing loss …
No.
That is most certainly not right. Headphones are a piece of equipment, and it is the way you use the equipment — not the equipment itself — that is bad. Take a butcher knife, for examle. Slicing your arm with it is bad. But just because it can hurt you does not mean it’s bad. Butcher knives are highly useful for cutting meat.
Similarly, turning the volume of headphones up to the point that they cause damage to your ears is bad. But headphones are useful for listening to auditory information without distracting others.
When using any piece of listening equipment, make sure that the volume is not too high. To do this, put the equipment on its lowest setting. Gradually turn the volume up untill you can hear it without distortion. If it seems quiet, but you can make out what the sounds are, don’t worry. Your ears will adjust.
I think good modern hearing aids are volume-limited. The older ones would probably distort over high volumes, but even then, they wouldn’t be powerful enough to fully amplify the loudest noises. So I think it’s just moderate-level sounds that are effectively amplified, and then only to however loud you set the volume control.
Do years and years of exposure degrade your hearing further? I don’t know, but the bulk of people who use hearing aids aren’t going to be using them for decades. They’ll either die of old age or get surgery; it’s not quite the same as getting hired at the lumber mill at age 20 and standing next to a screaming sawblade till you’re 65 …