Young Adults with Hearing Loss More Likely to Seek Help

You can attribute it to being more comfortable with technology or not seeing hearing loss as a health problem, but the younger you are, the more likely you are to use technology to assist with hearing loss.

One in six adults in the U.S. has hearing loss. Less than half of those people have been to an audiologist or doctor in the last five years to do something about it.  The reasons for not seeking help for hearing loss can vary with age, but a recent study shows that people 39 and under are much more comfortable using assistive technology to deal with their hearing loss.

Hearing Loss in Those Under 39 versus Over 39

The Centers for Disease Control surveyed 36,000 adults in the U.S.  They found those in the 18 to 39 age group were the most open to using technology to help them with their hearing loss. 

According to Carla Zelaya, head statistician and author of the report, “We found that people of middle age were the least likely to use assistive technology, perhaps because their hearing loss is not that bad yet and they are uncomfortable with using the newer devices. But the younger adults seem to recognize their hearing limitation and are using new technology to help themselves.”

They classified those 40 to 69 as middle aged and found this group was the least likely to get assistance for hearing loss.  People over the age of 70 were more likely to see a doctor or audiologist.

Men tended to blame hearing loss on long-term noise exposure, and women said it was due to aging.

Technology Used for Hearing Loss

Younger people are more comfortable with a larger variety of technological solutions for hearing loss.  They cited headphones, FM microphone systems, text messaging, and amplified telephones.

Headphones:  Noise cancelling headphones block ambient noise and can enhance select frequencies.  There are models that enhance speech quality while cancelling background noise.

FM Microphone Systems:  These are great for the classroom setting, especially in large college settings.  The professor or instructor wears a microphone and the student wears a receiver.  The microphone captures the speech, and FM radio signals send it to the receiver.  To the person wearing the receiver can hear the speech as if the speaker were only a few inches away instead of across the auditorium.  

Text Messaging: Whether they have hearing loss or not, young adults are more comfortable using text messages to communicate instead of phone calls.  Since using a cell phone can be difficult for someone without a telecoil in their hearing aid, text messaging makes “conversation” via cell phone much easier.

Amplified Telephones:  These phones can amplify incoming and outgoing sounds. There are even models that incorporate voice-to-text captioning so you can read what is being said. 

Hearing Aid Technology

In addition, young people are not adverse to using standard technology for hearing loss.  This includes cochlear implants, in-the-canal hearing aids, and behind-the-ear hearing aids.

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but when it comes to adapting to hearing loss, the middle-aged dogs could learn a few tricks from the younger and older dogs!