At the end of last year, our Program Lead for Mimi Health Tim von Klitzing was invited to talk on the topic of silence at "Creative Mornings" in Berlin.
Presentation overview
After Tim has briefly introduced the CreativeMornings Berlin audience to the world of everyday sounds, he subjects the 90 visitors to a hearing test: Tim plays a tone whose frequency rises from 200 Hz to 20,000 Hz. Everyone has to rise a hand, and those who cannot hear the high tones at some point lower their hands. Then Tim talks about the role of our hearing, why we should protect our hearing from loud noises in our youth and what we can do in old age not to end up in eternal silence.
You can watch the full speech here: https://creativemornings.com/talks/tim-von-klitzing/1
Key points from the presentation
Sound and silence have a massive impact on our lives
Sound and silence are way more important in our lives than most of us currently assume. We are not able to turn off our hearing and therefore should try to manage the sound around us as well as we can.
Every snowflake makes a sound when hitting the ground: This sound is about 10dB and will do you no harm, compared to the sound of the subway or a great rock concert, because starting at 85dB, your hearing will suffer eventually. The louder it gets, the shorter the time your ears can be exposed to it without any damage.
When someone experiences undetected hearing loss, the socio-economic impact is significant. If you statistically have a lower income, we see higher rates of unemployment, social isolation, a higher risk of dementia, and so on. Most of that is preventable and the first step to get there is to build awareness, educate and to make people think about it.
We feel what we hear
What is so fascinating to me is that everyone has a story and feelings attached to sounds, rhythms, cords, etc. Everyone knows that loud environments can be somewhat dangerous for our hearing. But that is an understatement. For me, the World Health Organization's publication called the "Burden of Disease by Environmental Noise" was truly an eye-opener. Before reading it, I rather had the positive effects of sound in mind, such as soothing music or the sound of a familiar voice. But this publication made me realize that these are quite luxurious environments and that constant and/or loud noise can have a severe impact on our health and well-being. Luckily, there is another facet to sound as well, which can bring positive effects to our lives. So, listen carefully.
About the speaker
Tim joined Mimi Hearing Technologies in 2016 with the focus on raising awareness for hearing health by creating impactful collaborations. Besides building partnerships with consumer electronic companies, he created the first world hearing index including 350,000 tested people globally and implemented Germany’s largest digital prevention campaign to date in collaboration with the public health insurance BARMER. Since 2019, Tim runs Mimi’s health prevention initiative division Good Hearing.