People don’t always realise that damage to our hearing is often directly linked to loud sounds – a lot of hearing loss is preventable.

It used to be that hearing loss from noise was most common among people who had used guns, or worked near noisy machinery. Now it’s young people who are losing hearing function because of loud sounds.

Loud sounds affect the hearing cells in a similar way strong sun affects our skin; you may not notice the damage today, but it will catch up with you tomorrow. And it’s not just ultra-loud sound. Just like being too long in the sun adds up to damage that can result in cancers, too long in moderately loud sound causes hearing damage.

What does a day in the life of your ears sound like? For many young people, a typical day could sound like this: an hour on the train with the iPod, a music lesson, orchestra practice, woodwork class, another hour on the train, more music practice, an hour playing video games with the headset on. That’s probably well above safe dosage levels.

It’s much too simplistic to blame the kids. This is an issue that should be addressed in schools – yet how many have hearing conservation programs?

Awareness needs to be drawn to loud noise dosage or, at the rate things are going, our children will be dealing with serious hearing problems much earlier than previous generations. Our schools need to hop on board.