People with APD now have access to ANC headphones and are thus using them.
I had APD in the 70s and I have it now. Difference is that i have ANC headphones now and can get them to block out what my brain won’t.
Like the rise in ADHD and Autism diagnosis… There isn’t more cases, just diagnosis got better or more available.
Correlation not causation.
Idiots.
Like the rise in ADHD and Autism diagnosis… There isn’t more cases, just diagnosis got better or more available.
It’s both.
We’re finding that even things like microplastics are causing changes that’s not fully understood. There’s even a recent study that links an increase in histamine to worsened ADHD symptoms.
And then there are things like poor sleep hygiene when very young can trigger a development of ADHD later on.
And then there are things like poor sleep hygiene when very young
can trigger acorrelates with the development of ADHD later on.FTFY. Correlation≠Causation, especially in cases like you mentioned. It’s a chicken and egg scenario.
Are kids getting ADHD because they didn’t sleep well? Or is poor sleep hygiene an early indicator of ADHD? Lots of people with ADHD have poor sleep hygiene, even as adults. Many will struggle with things like Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, because they get their biggest bursts of focus late at night when everyone else is asleep, the brain is releasing dopamine to keep them awake, and distractions are limited. Every single adult with ADHD has stories about getting focused on a project right before bedtime, then suddenly realizing the birds are chirping outside their window and the sun is rising.
Are
kidspeople getting ADHD because they didn’t sleep well? Or is poor sleep hygiene an early indicator of ADHD?The research shows that poor sleep hygiene can be a trigger for ADHD related symptoms. Poor sleep hygiene is not the same as “didn’t sleep well”. Poor sleep hygiene is not going to bed at an appropriate time, going to bed at wildly different times each night, blue light exposure within 2 hours of bedtime, etc.
The ages of 0 - 4 years are the most crucial for brain development. It’s why newborns sleep several times a day. The brain hasn’t finished forming by the time they are born. Even at the age of 3, kids are still napping mid-day. And those naps are extremely critical for healthy brain development.
So without good sleep hygiene, it can stunt brain development in a way that results in ADHD, or ADHD like symptoms.
Lots of people with ADHD have poor sleep hygiene, even as adults. Many will struggle with things like Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, because they get their biggest bursts of focus late at night when everyone else is asleep, the brain is releasing dopamine to keep them awake, and distractions are limited.
I have ADHD and DSPS. The reason people with DSPS feel awake at night is due to an issue with melatonin production. The brain doesn’t release melatonin normally (or at all) so the natural “feeling sleepy” signal never comes. I take prescription tryptophan and I’ve never slept better in my life. My “natural” sleep time in 2/3am and waking up is 10/11am. But with tryptophan I can have a “normal” sleep schedule.
And that’s another interesting thing. Kids diagnosed with ADHD can see improved outcomes when they are given tryptophan to help regulate sleep.
Btw, if you’re wondering. Tryptophan is an amino acid, and you can get it in pills that have medically measured doses. Why not just take melatonin? Well tryptophan metabolizes into melatonin and serotonin. It’s a guaranteed way to get melatonin.
Off the shelf melatonin pills aren’t regulated with dosages the same way. In fact, a pill in a 10mg melatonin bottle might only have 1mg of melatonin or even 15mg. They aren’t reliable, and the other issue is that melatonin tends to not be bioavailable enough to work reliably. Tryptophan is very bioavailable. It’s the stuff in turkey that makes people sleepy after eating it.
Edit: grammar
😌this is so me, lol
Some Linux and some DnB and the night is gone 🤣
deleted by creator
I’m wondering if the cause and effect are the other way around, people that have trouble with noise (such as people with APD) might want noise cancelling headphones. The rise in cases of APD might indicate otherwise, but with the information provided, it sounds like it might be under-diagnosed anyway.
The first thing many people used to assume is that if you had any problems with listening, you might be somewhat deaf. APD and other difficulties listening definitely aren’t deafness, but I wonder if there is increased awareness of other reasons why someone might have difficulty understanding speech.
but her audiologist believes the overuse of noise-cancelling headphones, which Sophie wears for up to five hours a day, could have a part to play.
Me, wearing my noise-cancelling headphones for 10+ hours a day …
I have my noise cancelling airpods pro, but never use ANC because it has that white noise sound I don’t like. It’s basically blasting more noise in your earhole to drown out/cancel out the noise around you.
Yeah, ANC quality can vary a lot and generally it’s even worse for earbuds.
I have a pair of Bose QC Ultra headphones which have amazing ANC.
A few month back there was a constuction site across the street. At one point I felt my desk vibrating, so I took of my headphones … only then did I realised they were using a jackhammer.
Similar story here, Bose QC whilst the house next door was (basically) being demolished… I just found the headphones ate batteries faster.
I sometimes find I’m just working with the headphones on and whatever I was listening to had stopped ages ago.
by blocking everyday sounds such as cars beeping, there is a possibility the brain can “forget” to filter out the noise.
Also growing up in the quiet countryside, I can say that you do not “forget” to hear sounds like cars… it’s definitely the everyday background noise that’s the problem.
As the world become more and more noisy. And people become more a more shitty with regards of doing noise without care about how it affects others. ANC become a necessity for some people.
I am 29 and I already have minuscule hearing loss (if results of the last hearing test were factual), and I don’t really listen to music/podcasts on headphones that much either.
I am also one of these people who still has regular PC speakers instead of gaming headsets or whatever.
So wait, I’m not just a grumpy old man who doesn’t like a lot of noise, this is actually a disorder?
Honestly though it’s an interesting question and I wonder if this is just the “natural state.” I really started to feel it after I went RVing for a year. It’s a relatively recent (in the overall span of humanity) development that people would be in groups large enough to make this be an issue.
I kinda regard ANC and smart watches as pacifiers for adults. The real world is only going to hurt more the longer you stay attached to the teat.
Do you feel the same about other wearable tech, like clothes and shoes?
A bit with shoes if worn all the time. They destroy your arches, toe splay, and hip alignment with your spine. And you become dependant because your feet get so soft and sensitive. Plus people drag those dirty things all over their homes.
Calling shoes and clothes wearable tech is quite a stretch. Particularly compared to smart watches and headphones. Why did you make that false equivalence?
Plus people drag those dirty things all over their homes.
Yeah, I’m glad I married someone who’s adamant about not wearing shoes in the house.
The cause of Sophie’s APD diagnosis is unknown, but her audiologist believes the overuse of noise-cancelling headphones, which Sophie wears for up to five hours a day, could have a part to play.
Other audiologists agree, saying more research is needed into the potential effects of their prolonged use.
That looks to me like, “audiologists have no bloody clue where this issue is coming from, and are therefore throwing shit at the wall in the hope that something will stick.”
Nope it’s a very reasonable hypothesis. “Symptom X suddenly occurs frequently. That started when people started doing Y. According to our understanding, Y has a direct impact on the functioning of X”. Causation has still to be established formally but it’d be quite surprising if it was mere correlation, as in it would overturn the understanding audiologists have about how things work.
Bluntly said: If you never train filtering out noise, then you suck at filtering out noise. That looks dead obvious, if it’s wrong, then in a very, very interesting way. General relativity vs. Newtonian mechanics kind of interesting.
The problem is not the hypothesis, the problem is that it isn’t really presented as a hypothesis. Reporting on the results before doing the experiment isn’t the way to go.
Our theories of how the world works are necessarily incomplete, and experiments turn up things that overturn scientific understanding often enough. The way this is set up matches a common pattern of vilifying tech without seeing whether it’s deserved or not. Maybe not wearing a noise cancellation headset would, in fact, help this patient, but until that’s tested and found out to be true, reporting on it is just spreading FUD.
her audiologist believes
(emphasis mine). Belief is colloquial speech for working hypothesis. Her prescription will have been along the lines of “ease on those headphones, go to a forest or park and just listen, use them only if you really feel them to be necessary, try to expose yourself”.
“Nothing can ever be acted upon unless we have a meta-study examining fifty double-blind studies” is pseudoscepticism.
I really struggle to process voices, but I hear absolutely everything.
Someone talking to me can get completely drowned out by a 15KHz hum of an electronic device, the acoustics of a room or a TV in the background.
Yet, I ask them if they are having trouble hearing me over all the noise. They usually reply “wharlt noise?” If it’s a high-pitch hum, they won’t acknowledge the noise even if I show them on a spectral analyser.
If it’s a high-pitched hum, they may genuinely be unable to hear it. It’s common for people to lose their hearing in very high registers quickly as they age (like, most teens still hear them, but thirty-somethings mostly don’t). Without noticing, since it doesn’t impede day-to-day communication.
Exactly.
Is she wearing high heels every day? Could be bullshit, but could be related. 🙄
This is not the same thing, as the other comment explains.
that’s how science works until you can actually test the hypotheses.
Studying sure. But this is openly speculating to the uninformed masses. Can earphones cause cancer? Unless you can prove they don’t, that is a hypothesis that could be tested. But more importantly, it’s slop for clickbait bullshit so your aunt can post that to Facebook and feel superior to all the dregs giving themselves cancer by wearing earphones. It’s useless.
According to this articles methods we know that noise cancelling headphones kill people, since everyone who uses them dies! (Eventually and yes /s)
eh, I don’t see a problem with this article specifically, and I don’t think your “cancer” hyperbole is helpful. If people feel like they are suffering from a similar listening/attention issue, there’s no real harm in trying to go without noise-cancelling for a while to see if the symptoms improve.
Sure, but it’s still pretty irresponsible of the BBC to publish what is effectively educated guesses as something to be concerned about.
This belongs in an academic article. Not a news one.
No it’s not. Experts in their field are seeing a strong correlation in behaviors that could harm your health. It’s the perfect place for an audiologist to speak to this issue.
And they also have a theoretical basis for their hypothesis. You don’t have to have 100% experimental proof about something to take initial action, especially to avoid harm.
Because that worked so well for
Dr.WakefieldNot at all the same thing. There was tons of evidence and theory that vaccines were safe, and the consequences of not using them were very high.
And yet that didn’t stop the ACTUAL harm it caused.
We also had an expert who started the vacines cause autism trying to peddle a new replacement for the MMR vaccine. (This is my opinion based on the research done Here )Just because “an expert” says something, doesn’t mean it’s true. And blindly listening to them can cause harm as well.
This is a fallacy called Argument of authority
No, it’s completely irresponsible to say something not peer reviewed and actually studied.
There was never even a shred of proper science behind the autism causes vaccines thing, and it was a very very very very minority opinion.
Does gravity exist on Alpha Centrauri? Ask any physicist, they’re going to say “yes”. You’re then going to stand there, saying “we have not actually made the necessary experiments on Alpha Centauri itself, we do not have conclusive evidence, all those people are peddling pseudoscience”. Never mind that all that we know about physics leads us to the extrapolation that, yes, gravity exists there and we have no reason to think why there isn’t gravity there. Could that extrapolation be wrong? Yes. But it’s also a silly thing to insist onto working into the plans of a colonialisation spaceship. All you’re achieving with that is having it never be built, bogging shit down in unsubstantiated scepticism.
You are right there’s never been any credible evidence.
But I wasn’t claiming that.
I was claiming it was irresponsible to report on such an early finding in the media without proper verification and actual conclusive studies.
Almost like the BBC article here in question.
They’re reporting on what the audiologists observe and believe to be the case, and clearly label it as such: A belief, with further study necessary. People thinking they could be affected by this might take action after reading the article, true, and the action would be – easing off on using sound-cancelling headphones. That could, in the end, not help. What would be the harm done? Neither the science was misrepresented, it was portrayed as incomplete, “here’s our educated guess”, and the recommendations one can draw from that guess are quite inconceivable to cause harm themselves.
Have a look again at what the Hippocratic oath states: First, do no harm. They’re keeping to that. Ease off. You can tell a patient to try dialling back on their coffee consumption before having conclusive proof that that’s what’s causing their jitters: Less coffee won’t kill them.
If a hypothesis is untestable, then it is a guess, and not scientific.
it’s not untestable, they just haven’t actually done it yet. In fact they say in the article research is needed.
The cause of Sophie’s APD diagnosis is unknown, but her audiologist believes the overuse of noise-cancelling headphones, which Sophie wears for up to five hours a day, could have a part to play.
So fucking stupid…
Kid grew up on a quiet farm in the countryside, then she moved to London and probably 100+ student plus lectures.
It’s not that noise cancelling headphones prevented her from developing normally, she developed in an environment like what we evolved to handle.
Then she got thrown into a cacophony of sound that is one of the planets largest/busiest cities…
And they act like she is the problem and not noise pollution?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41370-024-00642-5
Noise pollution is fucking a lot of us up, and people who grew up with it are used to it, but that doesn’t stop the negative consequences of it. Someone that never had to deal with it is obviously going to have what looks like a sudden onset of a condition, but the person is fine.
The environment is the problem.
People are posting about wanting to run away to the woods but I think it’s important to remember that cities can be quiet.
Not that we should all move to Delft, but if we built infrastructure for people instead of cars cities wouldn’t be so fucking loud.
My tolerance of noise and light pollution has gone way the hell down as I have gotten older. I want to live in the woods at this point.
I feel so lucky, living in the country side where the closest road is 300m away, and the closest neighbour 250m from the house. It gets completely quiet in the summertime due to all the trees surrounding the property. It’s heaven on earth in the summer!
Yeah I keep trying to move to the woods but my wife wants to be around people for some reason lol
She is just an example, they say this issue is on the rise in general.
Five NHS audiology departments have told the BBC that there has been an increase in the number of young people referred to them from GPs with hearing issues - only to find their hearing is normal when tested and it is their ability to process sound that is struggling.
APD is more common in neurodivergent people, those who have suffered from a brain injury or had a middle-ear infection as a child. However, more patients with APD are presenting outside of those categories, leaving audiologists to question if external factors, such as noise-cancelling headphones, are contributing.
I am glad to see us respect our link-aggregation heritage of ignoring the article and starting heated discussions based on what we infer from the headline. 😂
It also seems that the headline currently on the article is different and switches out clickbait tactics from misleading omission to absurd pearl-clutching: “Are noise-cancelling headphones to blame for young people’s hearing problems?” If you combine them, you get something closer to actual content of the article.
It also seems that the headline currently on the article is different and switches out
Both are present in the article; they don’t switch out. One is the title (as you can see in the title bar of a desktop web browser) and the other is the top-level heading of the text.
Looks like Lemmy picked up the former, which makes sense considering the document structure. BBC probably should have used the same phrase in both places.
I poked around a few other articles. A few are identical. Most are slight variations. Few are as different as these two. My guess would be that the original submission from the author or initial editor locks in a headline for the tab/title bar, but then the CMS lets them edit what appears in the main body of the webpage.
Article literally starts off just describing my ADHD related auditory processing difficulties, which is interesting for their claims because I don’t often listen to music in the first place because of it.
The only thing I use my headphones for are podcasts and audio books that I have rewind because I forgot I was listening to something.
My knee jerk response as a result is that it’s probably just younger people being more comfortable admitting something is wrong and looking for an explanation from the wrong people. They note that it is prevalent in aneurotypical people but don’t seem to have questioned that maybe these people simply aren’t diagnosed properly.
It’s especially interesting that they chose a woman as the focus for the article, with women being demonstrably underdiagnosed in particular.
Yeah those first couple paragraphs were just “ADHD/autistic woman behaves like an ADHD/autistic woman. Time to blame her for using accommodation equipment!” (Not actually Dx’ing her, but I recognize a lot of my own patterns here).
Like for fuck’s sake let us have our small bits of sanity. Tuning out the constant hell that is everyday life is not a sin.
they did say she was able to pay attention just fine watching lecture videos with subtitles. Also she is just an example, they said this problem is on the rise in general.
Someone with ADHD can better focus when they get the info simultaneously as text and audio? Unbelievable! Plus it’s the most over and under diagnosed disorder at the same time. Under diagnosed within women particularly. It’s getting diagnosed better and more often, so it fits too.
I don’t say that she has it but most neurodiverse will see lot’s of checked boxes.
Someone with ADHD can better focus when they get the info simultaneously as text and audio? Unbelievable!
Or… maybe she really does have APD as her doctors says she does?
I don’t say that she has it but most neurodiverse will see lot’s of checked boxes.
…because APD has some similar symptoms to ADHD. yet there are many armchair psychiatrists in here diagnosing her with ADHD.
APD doesn’t have similarities with ADHD. ADHD can cause APD but APD like many other common symptoms is not in the official catalog of symptoms for ADHD. But it makes sense when you think of ADHD as “not being able to prioritize input” so all you hear is processed simultaneously.
I’m not saying the doctors are wrong. But they don’t know why she has it and I’m just saying that there may be a link that they’re not seeing because of years of wrong diagnosis criteria for ADHD and Autism. Hell until 2013 they told that it is impossible to have both and today we know that the overlap is somewhere between 30 and 50%.
APD doesn’t have similarities with ADHD. ADHD can cause APD but APD like many other common symptoms is not in the official catalog of symptoms for ADHD.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9493945/
“Central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) present overlapping symptomatology.”
…podcasts and audio books that I have rewind because I forgot I was listening to something.
I sad chuckled because I am the same. On the other hand, I listen to glitchy electronic music with irregular patterns on my headphones in order to concentrate on a task. My brain tunes out the mayhem and focuses on the task at hand. Imagine a screen full of jumbled, ever changing imagery with a single fly crawling across it, but in sound. My brain will focus on the “fly” and blur out the rest because it makes no sense.
Listening to proper music has the opposite effect where it will immediately trigger my mental wanderings.
Could you share some examples of this type of music, please?
Not sure what Jo listens to but I recognized myself in his description.
You can lookup Sewerslvt (Mr.Kill Myself) for an exemple. I also listens to :
- Machine Girl (Try Krystle URL Cyberplace Mix)
- Goreshit (Try Fine Night or Black is the new black)
- Loffciamcore ( A little more hardcore than the others, try Eat Me)
Aside from the obvious Aphex Twin tracks, here is an old one I always liked. It gets progressively more broken halfway through, which is is a good example of what I mean.
Bad title. The article examines whether specifically noise-cancelling headphones may be involved in listening issues.
Oh boy I hope not, I love noise cancelation lol. I figure it’s gotta be better than upping the volume to override the noise around me.
Maybe if they weren’t all in tiny cramped apartments with paper-thin walls and multiple roommates they wouldn’t need to wear headphones all the time.
Also, voice chat doesn’t work very well with speakers and microphone without a lot feedback.
I’m not buying it that it is headphone-related. I wear headphones nearly all of the time, I’ve listened to music loudly for years on end, I’ve had to deal with loud screeches, loud noise wherever I go, lived and worked.
It is totally an environmental thing. Plus, the article had already wrapped up what the problem was and a normal hearing test came back negative.
But they haaaaaad to find a reason in the next line. Just had to.
Have fun. I have Tinnitus.
From just headphone use? No, disagreed. From loud music? I used it as an example, I don’t listen to loud music constantly as much anymore. You can’t avoid Tinnitus because even if you didn’t listen to loud music all of the time, being surrounded by loud noise in general will eventually get you there. I work in a store where people slam pallets down (for no stupid reason), screech pallet jacks, have noisy pallet jacks in general, ladder carts squeal and screech. We’re not allowed to protect our ears because “CONSOOMER FIRST” priority.
Plus, where I live, people slam their doors around, they holler, babies and kids throwing fits. Yeah, it doesn’t matter if I listen to loud music or not, I will develop Tinnitus because of the environments. It’s an environment thing.
We’re not allowed to protect our ears because “CONSOOMER FIRST” priority.
If you exposed to loud noises in your work environment (depending on the exposure time and loudness dB level), you should indeed protect your ears. In fact, by law your company should protect their employees from loud noise exposure and use proper hearing protection (so not the cheap stuff either).
If they don’t meet these standards, you have the right to report the issue to workplace safety authorities or your company’s health and safety officer. Employers are legally required to conduct noise assessments and provide adequate hearing protection, such as high-quality earmuffs or earplugs rated for the specific decibel levels in your work environment.
Trust me, if you are indeed exposed to loud noises can lead to irreversible hearing damage. I don’t care so much about hearing loss, but Tinnitus on the other hand is killing my live. My Tinnitus has had me in its grip for years now. I can’t commute to work anymore, I can’t just go and do fun things anymore, hack I can’t even join a birthday party when there are too many people. It is really suffering. And there is NO cure. #Tinnitus
they’re not saying it’s a headphones thing in general. they’re saying it may be a noise-cancelling headphones thing.
Did the boomboxes-next-to-heads and the walkmans of the '80s and discmans of the '90s not count? I think a lot of game boy users also used headhpones.
I actually didn’t use them that much at all, but I still have trouble hearing with background noise. Noise-cancelling headphones have actually been an amazing thing in my life because (a) it helps overstimulation and anxiety and (b) it actually helps me hear someone talking to me because it filters out the other stuff. I suspect my problems are a combination of mostly-neurological (ADHD and probably (though not officially) ASD) and maybe impacted by loud concerts and general aging-related stuff. I can still hear really high-pitched sounds and the like whereas many of my peers around my age and younger can’t as well, but it’s all mud to me when there’s a lot of sound.
this isn’t a hearing loss issue, the hypothesis is that noise-cancelling headphones specifically are causing our brains to not filter out random noises neurologically.
True. They also mention the person’s rural upbringing and then moving to the city. That mirrors my experience and my hearing issues pre-date using noise canceling headphones. I always had a rough time anywhere there were lots of people and noise, but it just wasn’t super common previously (I grew up in rural Ohio and have lived in some big US cities.followed by nearly a decade in Tokyo).
I have ADHD and sometimes can’t focus to do more brain intensive work if I’m in a room with a bunch of people talking. Street/background noise doesn’t bother me at all. I grew up suburb rural adjacent but I’ve worked in huge cities for long periods and it just doesn’t bother me like six people having two conversations would.
The woman in the article is also just a single example. They mention that this condition is on the rise in general.
