Help! They're closing in- screeching Aliens!!!

Can someone please tell me why music at social gatherings has become raspingly loud to the point of being cacophonously unintelligible- creating permanent deafness (conclusively proven) -blaring like a shrill hysterical banshee - over harsh substandard speakers that has been proven to cause permanent hearing loss. Hearing loss and tinnitus (ringing in the ears) are insidious. Deafness occurs gradually. People don’t realize they have a problem until it’s too damn late.

What’s with this new trend - please educate me- isn’t music meant to be enjoyed and heard at normal human decibels and aren’t gatherings meant for chatting interaction, meeting, conversing and surely one can dance to music at a level that is not harmful? 

Watch your hearing guys: ears are very delicate, exposure to sound pressure levels above 85dBA cause irreversible damage to hearing.

When I couldn’t take it anymore last evening & I was excusing myself a friend pointedly stated that people in their teens and twenties love it- and this smart guy in his early twenties immediately piped up saying there is nothing he and his friends dislike more than rasping jarring music blaring from discordant speakers. It limits if not aborts conversation!!! 

At a christmas sundowner on the 25th of Dec my friend the host requested the musician - an older gen singer known for belting out retro numbers -to lower the volume. He threw a tantrum insisting on keeping his barbarous speakers at those pitiless decibels until she had to insist. 

If you are at a party as I was last night or at a concert where loud music is played, you may experience Temporary Threshold Shift (TTS). This temporary loss of hearing can become permanent too- when this happens, you will never hear fully again. As one researcher at Harvard Medical School found was often the case, listening to music at decibels that are not meant for human ears damages hearing in less than an hour and a half and might lead to dementia. 

The only real solution then is a hearing aid - not an attractive prospect for anyone, and is more often even seen in the case of teenagers in the last few years!

Recearch evidence shows that hearing loss doubles the risk of developing depression and increases the risk of anxiety and other mental health problems.

"There is now strong evidence that mild hearing loss doubles the risk of developing dementia - with moderate hearing loss leading to three times the risk, and severe hearing loss five times the risk,” the report says. 

The association researching the incidence of hearing loss in this decade said the number of people suffering deafness caused by loud music will rise from one in six to one in five, as it called for more caution and hearing music at levels not meant for the human ears as well as investment in treatment and research into hearing loss.

WHO estimates, around 300 million people worldwide have a disabling hearing impairment and this would increase to 900 million by 2025.

According to a new study, the number of adults in the 20 years of age or older with hearing loss is expected to nearly double in coming decades.

Put another way, that means the percentage of adults who have hearing loss will rise from 15 percent to 22 percent.

That’s a jump from 44 million in 2020 to 73 million in 2060

Nisha JamVwal is a Celebrity columnist, Influencer, Luxury Brand Consultant, Television Host/ Anchor, Interiors Architect and Interiors Commentator, Art Patron and Traditional Crafts Crusader. She lives & works in India and is very active on social media. She champions the cause of the girl child and women achievers and runs the #MumbaiWomanAchieversClub. Nisha's blog archives her Business India, Asian Age, Youth Inc , Good Homes, Grazia, L'Official columns & articles: nishajamvwal.blogspot.in