EU: Apple iPods and other PMPs must carry health warnings
It’s a little known fact that Europeans are incapable of looking after themselves and using common sense. So we have to have our hands held (or forcibly tied behind our backs) by the people in charge of the European Union. The latest hand-holding directive concerns iPods and other PMPs (Portable Media Players) and how loud they blast the music into our ears. They clearly need to carry health warnings to protect our fragile bodies.
This all started last October when experts on the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks issued a report suggesting that regularly listening to loud music on MP3 players could damage people’s hearing in later life. A fact which, if we hadn’t been told by those highly intelligent people at the SCENIHR, we clearly would never have known.
December saw the RNID (Royal National Institute for the Deaf) issue its own warning over listening to music at high volumes. Hearing loss, tinnitus, and high blood pressure were listed as some of the complications from listening to music at high volumes.
Now, according to The Times, the European Commission is getting serious in its aims to spread the message and stop us all from going deaf in years to come. Apple and all other manufacturers of PMPs will be asked to either display health warnings on the devices, have on-screen alerts flash up concerning the volume, or have regular audio warnings of the same thing.
Furthermore, a default volume of around 80 decibels will be required, although users will be able to change it to suit their own tastes. Unfortunately for those who like listening to our music loud, doing so will mean being subjected to those audio warnings in our ears on regular occasions.
The European Commission’s consumer affairs directorate said:
Current safety settings are not good enough to protect people. There will be default volume settings so people can protect themselves and there will be new information requirements either on the screen or on the devices themselves. The aim is to make people aware that beyond certain noise levels you risk long-term damage to hearing, but users will be given a choice and have the option to override it if they want to.
While I accept that listening to loud music is clearly not the best idea in the world, it is surely the right and responsibility of the individual to decide whether to take that risk or not. As someone who chose his MP3 player partly because of how loud it could amplify the music, I resent the fact that in the future I’ll have to put up with continual warnings about what I’m doing to my hearing.
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This is a topic that often gets me riled up.
Then we are getting padded lamp posts to avoid txt walking accidents. We sure do need looking after.
October 1st, 2009
In America, windshield shades carry warning labels “Driving while in place can cause accidents” hahaha