2023-04-22 15:03:00
The first cause of deafness in the world is neither the noise of urban environments nor the effects of old age, but rather daily exposure to digital sound.
Note that a French teenager uses headphones or earphones for regarding 9 hours a day (Optic 2000 group), a habit that is harmful to the ears, and it is not just a question of volume…
Does compressed sound make you deaf?
It is harmful to the body, even when listened to at low volume. As listening media have multiplied over several decades, engineers have had to invent the technique of compression to store sound while maintaining optimal quality.
“With the first vinyl records, explains Dr Pierre Ahnoury (Institut Curie), sound covered 30 to 120 decibels, frequencies that are completely natural for our hearing. But with digital compression, he continues, the sound has been reduced to a permanent frequency of around 60 to 80 decibels”. This technique prevents the ear from resting at low frequencies and forces it into a state of permanent auditory tension. This phenomenon, called “cerebral fatigue” by researchers, increases the risk of deafness.
Irreparable hearing damage
Like taste or smell, hearing cannot be repaired. Our hearing heritage at birth is regarding one hundred and fifty thousand so-called ciliated cells (similar to eyelashes). They line the inner ear and transform each sound signal into nerve impulses and “these cells do not regenerate”, insists the doctor.
One in four French people is now affected by hearing loss and the WHO predicts nearly two and a half billion deaf people by 2050.
Is there spyware on my computer?
Véronique Bazillaud, general delegate of the Listening to See Foundation, mentioned (Unesco Sound Week – 2022), the creation of a “certification label”. “The general public does not have the possibility of choosing to listen to a “natural” or “modified” sound, she is alarmed and this label might guarantee “safe” music, produced without compression”.
The stakes are high, because hearing problems do not stop at our ears. They also have repercussions on our sleep and, more seriously still, increase the risk of Alzheimer’s and accelerate the aging of the brain.
Hearing but also sight
As if that weren’t enough, digital technology also seriously disturbs sight, with an increase in cases of myopia noticed for several years by scientists.
According to Asnav (National Association for the Improvement of Sight), in 2021, we spent between 9 and 12 hours a day in front of screens and between 12 and 16 hours for the youngest.
The “blue light” from the screens makes our brain believe that it is daytime and that it is useless to produce melatonin, this hormone essential for the proper regulation of sleep. Usually, as soon as the eye no longer perceives daylight, it sends a signal to the brain to produce this hormone and thus prepare for night’s rest.
Myopia and blue light
Even if the absolute proof is not yet scientifically established, recalls the neuro-ophthalmologist Serge Picaud, an international scientific consensus leans for a link between this artificial light and the epidemic of myopia. A hypothesis confirmed by a Chinese study of 120,000 children aged 6 to 13, showing in June 2020 an increase in myopia of nearly 15% compared to 2019.
And Serge Picaud adds “We often ignore it, but myopia can lead to blindness”. Digital can therefore make you blind.
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#Attention #danger #digital #kill
