Our ears are unique. How I hear is different from how you hear, and to how the person next to you hears. That’s because we all hear differently. And hearing is a growing concern, with 55% of the adult population suffering some form of hearing loss and the total volume of people with hearing impairment set to increase to 900 million worldwide by 2050. Due to heavy noise exposure and today’s always-on mentality, our ears barely have time to rest. We use our hearing for listening to music and podcasts, talking calls or watching movies. And we do this in places that are already loud. Talking on the phone in a busy street, or trying to understand the person on the other side of the call is challenging, and we tend to just simply turn up the volume. People on mobile devices typically consume audio content at 17% higher levels when listening in background noise. This is affecting our hearing health and is why hearing loss is a growing global problem.
Mimi and our friends at the Good Hearing Initiative are launching a nationwide campaign called #silenceforfuture. It is all about making people aware of the noise they are living in, day by day, and have them talk about it. For this campaign, a website called Bundesrepublik-Noiseland.de has been launched on today’s World Hearing Day, including a map of noise marking loud and quiet spots all over Germany. The Good Hearing is spreading the word for more silence places and runs several activities until the Noise Awareness Day, April 29th. Visit www.bundesrepublik-noiseland.de (in german only) to find out more.
