It is so funny to be a Dad. I get to relive my childhood. My son watches TV for a half hour before going to bed. It works well to calm him down, and gives my wife and I a break too. No I am not a big let the TV baby sit the kid kinda guy. This is just about the only “shows” he gets to watch all day. Regardless, the latest big hit is “The Magic School Bus.” As Wikipedia tells us:
“The Magic School Bus is a Canadian/American Saturday morning animated children’s television series, based on the book series of the same name by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen. It is notable for its use of celebrity talent and combining entertainment with an educational series. Broadcasting & Cable said the show was “among the highest-rated PBS shows for school-age children.” Although it has long since concluded its original airing, the series still airs reruns on a variety of different networks worldwide.
Cartoons today (even those from 1994) are soooo different from the beat em and blow em up cartoons I used to watch. The Magic School bus is of course goofy as can be, and it can be silly and stupid, but it is also meant to be educational. As I sit here watching the latest – about a praying mantic, spider and 50’s horror movies – I am really enjoying it. Not as much as my son, but still it is pretty good.
I have began this day like so many others. Get down on my knees and ask the good Lord to help me and in turn for me to help Him. I have been trying to be a man of faith for over twenty years now and I must say my last twenty years have been much more fulfilling than the previous twenty. You just don’t get many chunks of twenty years in this life though. I am hoping that I do have at least another one and part of a second block ahead of me.
Yet all I can do is deal with today. Tomorrow is an unwritten draft that may or may not come to fruition. Today on the other hand, and the present moment, or real and in front of me.
Lots and lots of people today use earbuds to listen to music. And while we all have known for sometime that sustained exposure to loud noises can cause permanent hearing loss, lots of people do not pay attention to this when they are younger. Clearly there are plenty of people listening to their music to loud. How many people do you pass on a busy city street where you can hear their music playing? This racket is subjecting their ears to this loud noise from right next to the eardrum!
How bad is this type of behavior? A Northwestern University professor, Dean Garstecki, thinks it is pretty bad. From his December 2005 study:
earbuds …are even more likely to cause hearing loss than ….older devices
We’re seeing the kind of hearing loss in younger people typically found in aging adults.
Measurements have shown that some young adults listen to music at 120 decibels, which is what you can expect at a rock concert. This level of sound can cause damage after slightly more than an hour of exposure.
Unfortunately sound frequencies produced by earbuds are not buffered like they were with older types of headphones that fit over the ears. When Walkman’s were all the craze, hearing loss was talked about even but the lower quality reproduction was somewhat safer. The digitally reproduced sounds today are also crisper and cleaner, with less distortion. The sound is higher quality but at high levels it is more harmful than regular headphones.
Another added hearing danger problem is that people often use earbuds to listen to sound reproduction devices while they are out and about. We have a tendency to raise the volume in order to drown out external noise. More volume equals more potential for hearing loss. One study showed that music listeners using headphones in a quiet indoor environment were fine with music levels of 69 decibels. In the outdoors with up to 65 decibels of ambient noise drove listeners to increase the sound from 82 to 95 decibels. This is clearly done to block out the sounds of the environment. This does have the desired effect but also is harming our hearing.
There are ways you can take action to keep yourself, and your hearing, safe. The only thing you really need to do is to not listen to your music so loud. Yet how to do this in a way that still allows you to enjoy whatever it is you are listening too is the trick.
If you are outdoors or in a noisy environment but want to lower the volume of your music it may do you well to have some noise cancelling or noise reduction earbuds. Noise cancelling will take away any constant high frequency sounds very well. With less of that noise in the background, you can lower the volume of your mp3 player and hear a lot better. Noise blocking earbuds are similar but work simply by blocking your ear canal from taking in sound from beyond the earbuds. Different way to get to the end result of you being able to lower the sound on your earbuds. So be careful, lower the sound on your music player and save your hearing!
You may also want to visit…..
Seaside Heights
Point Pleasant NJ
Red Top Mountain State Park
Lake Allatoona
Lavallette, New Jersey
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