Listen Up! What to Make of Your Hearing Age - a podcast by WNYC Studios

A hearing test, like many health tests, can be a little intimidating.

If you've ever worried at about your hearing, you probably don’t want to really know for sure because then it’s real.

Fortunately, about 5,000 of you took us up on the challenge of trying out the Mimi Hearing Test app, as part of our Listen Up! engagement series.

And for the vast majority, it was your first time taking a hearing test as adults. Only 35% of you had been tested before.

Annie Ungrady from the podcast review blog Audiologue wrote: “I will say that I was rather nervous to take it...My best friends… always tell me that my hearing is truly impaired.”

And another listener wrote that even a test result saying "everything is fine," would be a little worrisome, "because I know that this is the age where my grandma and mother began losing their hearing."

Overall the average age of our group was 47 years-old. And here's the spread of their hearing ages:

(Elaine Chen / WNYC)

Granted these stats are from a self-administered test so the accuracy of people’s results depends on the conditions in which they used Mimi. (For an FAQ on Mimi, click here.)

Within most of the age groups, the hearing age was on the younger end. In other words, a substantial portion within each age group were getting hearing ages younger than their actual age.

One reason for this might be the demographics of our group: it was 62% female.

The Women Can Hear You

Biological females are less likely to have as much hearing loss as males. Part of the reason is environmental, says Howard Hoffman, Program Director of Epidemiology and Statistics at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD): “Men just tend to be in occupations and choose leisure activities that expose them to more noise.”

The average actual age between males and females in each group was similar. (Elaine Chen / WNYC)

Another explanation has to do with the standard Mimi uses for calculating a hearing age. The ISO 7029, set by a non-profit comprised of national standards bodies from around the world, is one of the most comprehensive data sets available on hearing function grouped by age.

But the ISO 7029 is largely based on studies from the 1950s through the 1970s, and a lot has changed since then. Adults today are less likely to have had measles, which can cause hearing loss, and are less likely to have been exposed to as much noise since fewer have manufacturing or military experience (think loud machinery and explosions) compared to the past.

“There were a lot more risk factors for hearing loss back then,” Hoffman from the NIDCD noted, “Everything that you can think that has improved health has contributed to [a lower rate of hearing loss today].”

One age group, however, had a hearing age older than their actual age: people under 25. On average, that group had a hearing age of seven to eight years older than their actual age.*

Youth today

Every generation complains that the young listen to their music too loudly. But it’s different now says audiologist Deanna Meinke, a professor at the University of Northern Colorado, because of the ubiquity of personal sound devices and how much we use them.

According to the National Institutes of Health, many adults experience hearing loss because of loud noise.

The louder the sound, the less time it takes to cause hearing loss: the few seconds of gunfire by your ear could cause permanent damage whereas loud headphones take longer. One-to-two hours of exposure to 100 decibels or more (generally the max capacity of personal sound devices) could cause damage to the hair cells.

But are younger people today experiencing higher rates of hearing loss compared to previous generations?

While some much publicized studies suggested yes, others say it’s too early to decide, let alone attribute any difference to smartphones or loud music.

One reason is that it takes time before loud music exposure will cause a noticeable decline in your hearing.

“You need to lose something like 25% of your hair cells before you’ll see a change in an audiogram,” explains audiology professor William Hal Martin at the National University of Singapore. “There are lots of smoking guns that point at personal listening devices, but there’s nothing conclusive.”

What’s loud?

A good rule of thumb is you should be able to hear someone speak to you at a normal volume at an arm’s length away, says Meinke, who runs a hearing loss education program, Dangerous Decibels, which she co-directs with Martin. If not, then it’s too loud.

On the plus-side: noise-induced hearing loss is generally preventable. Keep the volume on your devices low (no more than 90 minutes at 80% volume, according to the Dangerous Decibels). Avoid loud environments, or if that's not possible, use hearing protection, like ear plugs.

25% of people who shared their Mimi hearing results with us thought that their hearing adversely affected their day-to-day. But even among that group, over half had not gotten their hearing tested before as adults, nor did they use any assistive device.

Whatever your result, it's never too early to hear better. Contact your local audiologist to figure what might work for you.

 

 

*Now it could be that another limitation of the ISO 7029 may be at play. The ISO 7029 only measures people over 18 years of age so if you have hearing that’s better than an 18 year-old, you can only get 18 on the in-depth test.

Originally published Nov. 9. Updated on Dec. 3 after our call-out on The Takeaway and Science Friday brought in more participants.

 

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