Going deaf... who else?

[Matt Williams]

[ QUOTE ]
I too predict hearing loss on an epic scale for the young guys of today. Those house-shaking car stereos are going to give them the ears of a very old man very young. And people wearing earphones all the time with their ipods and portable CD players are doing a number on themselves too. You're going to see a drastically different percentage of people wearing hearing aids this century than you did the last. Fortunately, they'll probably be miniaturized and much harder to see. But being a young guy living next to an old guy who cranks the t.v. to hear it and screams every time he's on the telephone is going to be crazy bad in the future.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yea, any noise over 80dB (I think it's 80) causes damage that can't be replaced. It's never a good thing when you hear some dipsh@t listening to a car stereo when the car is 50 feet away and you are inside your own car with music on. I think tinitus will be more widespread though.

[Blarg]

Yup, guys in my neighborhood have music so loud that from quite a distance I can still get wood furniture and glass to start to vibrate so hard they give off noise of their own. They must be completely destroying their ears.