With worry for our
generation, completely reasonable given one in five teenagers suffer from
slight hearing loss today, Virginia Heffernan addresses the widely popular use
of headphones and why we should use them in moderation. Heffernan goes back
into the origin of headphones as well as their intended use to block out commotion
for controlled auditory experiences before connecting them to today’s society
in order to argue against them. While the author speaks to their own, older
generation who may be more concerned over their child blasting loud music than
the actual child might be, the argument does not fail to at least speak
somewhat to teens who may be looking in on the subject from the ‘outside’.
Heffernan begins the
article by grabbing the audience’s attention with a simple statistic: “One in
five teenagers in America can’t hear rustles or whispers, according to a study
published in August in The Journal of the American Medical Association”. This
could seem urgent not only to a fretting parent or other adult figure, but as
teens ourselves we could also become worried due to the possibility of being
part of that 20% in danger of acquiring hearing loss without realizing it. This
prompts both direct and indirect audiences to read through the rest of the
article either for an explanation on how or
for a simple solution that could be attempted to reduce the auditory damages.
Perhaps knowing the
complete removal of earbuds from our daily lives would be an unreasonable call
to action, Heffernan’s conclusion is not one of completely banning earbuds, but
it is simply one that seeks more of a compromise despite the overall negative
connotation the article gives to earbuds through this connection with hearing
loss and antisocial behavior. This compromise, on the grounds of “protecting
[our] brains” while not completely shooting down the idea of “escapism” when
listening to music, makes the argument seem a bit more reasonable for the
younger audience looking in as the topic of discussion.
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