I once had a Chemistry high school teacher. While we were studying for our Advanced Placement Chemistry exams and final exams, we (the students and I) heard a high-pitched sound coming from somewhere and all wondered where that sound came from. Ironically, the Chemistry teacher heard no such thing and wondered what the commotion was all about. When he asked the students, he said that he was hard of hearing due to his old age and listening to loud rock music at concerts during his younger years. (I suppose he’s a baby boomer.) Is hardness of hearing an age-related characteristic?
Loss of ability to hear the upper frequencies is a result of aging. Other types of hearing loss are common with aging but varies widely among individuals. You don’t even have to be that old to lose these higher frequencies. Students have found ring tones that they can but are inaudible to adults.
CRT TVs make a high-pitched noise at a frequency of 15625 Hz (in countries that use the 625-line 25-fps PAL standard) or 15750 Hz (525-line 30-fps NTSC). Children and young people can hear it but most adults can’t.
It’s called presbycusis, and it happens to all of us to some degree.
Inside of your ear, there are a bunch of tiny sound receptors called hair cells. You only get so many of these, and once they die, that’s it. They don’t regrow. As we age, some of these hair cells die off, resulting in permanent hearing loss. The hearing loss occurs across all frequencies, but is most noticeable on the high end, and a bit on the low end as well. This is why, generally speaking, teenagers can hear those annoying mosquito ring tones and adults can’t. It should be noted however that hearing varies from one person to another, and some teens can’t hear those high tones and some adults can.
Exposure to loud noise levels, especially over a long period of time, can damage hair cells and cause permanent hearing loss. Smoking also seems to increase the rate of hair cell death, though I’m not sure exactly how.
I was born with a hearing loss. My loss was profound in the lower tones, and dropped off in the mid-ranges, and was almost normal in the high tones.
The age-related hearing loss in the upper tones has left me with damned near nothing now.
FYI, a hearing aid does NOT give you “normal” hearing, like glasses can correct vision. Although the digital ones can compress sounds, you still are getting essentially amplification. If you cannot discern speech, amplification is simply going to give you LOUD garbage. Telling someone to “turn up your hearing aid” is useless and damned rude.
stepping down from soap box
~VOW
My hearing aids amplify the the tones that I have a problem with. I now have an easier time discerning speach. To turn them up requires a transmitter and a computer.
WHAT!?!?
Ha, ha, very (not) funny.
~VOW
Would you like to borrow my hearing aid TriPolar?
When I was young I could hear the 15,750 hz tone from the TV and I think it interfered with my enjoyment of TV. By the time I was 30, this disappeared.
So it’s age-related in the sense that old people tend to experience hearing loss even in the absence of exposure to damagingly-loud sounds, and it’s also age-related in the sense that old people tend to have been exposed to more damagingly-loud sounds than young people. A person currently in his sixties is likely to have been to more rock concerts and airshows than a person currently in his twenties.
My dad is 77 and has significant hearing loss. He’ll tell you it’s from his stint as a navy pilot around 1960, when he flew multi-engine prop planes all over the world; I tend to think it has at least as much (and probably more) to do with the decades since then, during which time he has never worn ear protection while riding a motorcycle, mowing the lawn, or using any number of ultra-noisy power tools (table saw, chain saw, wood router, etc.).
I do all of those things too (except the multi-engine prop planes), but I consistently wear hearing protection; I have a box of disposable earplugs in the basement and another in the garage. At work we get our hearing tested annually. I’m 41 now, and still have perfect hearing at all measured frequencies. Age by itself may take some of that over the next few decades, but I’m not going to give up any more than I have to.
To Machine Elf:
Watch your blood pressure too, Elf. High blood pressure plus the drugs to treat it can affect hearing. Age related loss is probably due to exposure to noise, but it seems like 99% of the population develops HBP, and that is a hearing killer.
Other drugs, aspirin, acetominophen, and ibuprofen, can also whack hearing.
The sad thing is even if you find a way to bring the BP under control and reduce the medication, the loss is probably permanent.
I’m gonna have a lot of company.
~VOW