[Eng] Hearing aid

We do know what hearing aid is. The true purpose was to help people who are unable to hear sound which travels through air (this is important, as we could only use this medium to hear properly) due to his/her conducting and/or perceptive deafness.

As technology and urbanization evolves, we, the young generations has become the pioneer towards psychology and medicine (especially ENT) findings. We contributed to a great era by developing a new subtype of deafness of which we call 'Selective deafness' (other information about this is in here, here and here). 

Yes, we have made an opposite of usage of an aid by creating subtype of deafness which I would call it  Hearing Aid Relative Deafness, or HEARD. Before we continue, forgave me for all intentionally annoying puns I've made through out this article.

To be HEARD

The new generation which now quite attached to any known technology of that era would not be missed with the usage of their headphones or earphones. Either using it with their MP3 players (yes, some still do use a separate product), Ipods, Iphone or any other phone/mobile which have its own 3.5mm jacks, even better, wireless properties.

As the name implies, the aid, is used to create a 'silent' environment although the sound that produced toward a level of deafening the bearer. 

I would prefer the acronym formed as HEARD (HEaring Aid Relative Deafness), as the patient (will it be a disease?) would only hear things but not listening. Thus he heard things but didn't comprehend or stored as memory.

As long as it meets the purpose of not-going-to-listen-to-any-other-crappy-sound, they will stay in the Relative Deafness state. Irony, when the young ones said to their parents, "Why wouldn't you listen to me?"

From Relative to Permanent

The condition that any of us assume as harmless act of selfishness could indeed gave us future attention. This is due to prolonged exposure of any sound just to create our own 'private room' having sound barrier from the environment. A condition called Noise-Induced Hearing Loss occur when we were exposed by certain level of decibel (dB) through a long period of time.

General idea about this facts:

• A typical conversation occurs at 60 dB – not loud enough to cause damage.
• A bulldozer that is idling (note that this is idling, not actively bulldozing) is loud enough at 85 dB that it can cause permanent damage after only 1 work day (8 hours).
• When listening to a personal music system with stock earphones at a maximum volume, the sound generated can reach a level of over 100 dBA, loud enough to begin causing permanent damage after just 15 minutes per day!
• A clap of thunder from a nearby storm (120 dB) or a gunshot (140-190 dB, depending on weapon), can both cause immediate damage.

So Listen Carefully


Human being quite special and unique when it comes to innovation and evolution. Once a primarily purpose of hearing aid was to hear better for listening, but now has a secondary use for selfishness where one openly says while plugging their ear hole, "I don't even care of my surrounding anymore".

So, beware for every purpose we made just to achieve a temporary satisfaction, will it cause us our quality of life later on. Or better to ask, will we be using hearing aid for its main function?