Turn down the volume: the WHO's attack on the harmful use of smartphones

GENEVA; More than a billion young people are at risk of losing their hearing by using excessively smartphones and other audio devices, warned the UN (February 12) by proposing new security standards for safe volume levels.

In an effort to protect the audience, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) have published a non-binding international standard for the manufacture and sale of audio. use of audio devices.

Young people are particularly inclined to adopt risky listening habits.

Nearly half of people aged 12 to 35, or 1.1 billion people, are exposed to "excessive and prolonged exposure to loud sounds, including music that they listen to through personal audio, "said the UN health agency.

READ: Lower the tone! The musical habit of the millennia puts their hearing in danger: UN

The head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, stressed that the world already has the "technological know-how to prevent hearing loss".

"It should not be true that so many young people continue to damage their hearing by listening to music," he said.

Young people, he said, "have to understand that once lost, they will not come back."

At present, about 5% of the world's population, or about 466 million people, including 34 million children, suffer from a disabling hearing loss.

The WHO said that it was not clear how many of them had damaged their hearing by the dangerous use of audio devices.

He nevertheless insisted that the new standard developed with the ITU would go a long way to "protecting these young consumers when they do something they like".

The WHO considers that a volume greater than 85 decibels for eight hours or 100 decibels for 15 minutes is dangerous.

The standard for secure listening devices and systems requires the inclusion in all audio devices of a "sound attribution" software, to track the volume level and the duration. from exposure of sound to sound, and to badess the risk incurred by his hearing.

This system can alert a user if he has dangerous listening habits.

The WHO also calls for parental controls as well as automatic volume controls on audio devices in order to avoid any dangerous use.

Some smartphones and other audio devices already offer some of these features, but the UN would like to see a uniform standard used to help protect against disabling hearing loss.

"Think of it as if you were driving on a highway, but without a speedometer in your car or speed limit," said Shelly Chadha of the WHO.

"What we propose is that your smartphones are equipped with a speedometer, a measurement system that tells you how much sound you're getting and tells you if you're going over the limit".