Your phones are pretty common these days.
Most of my students have a set of earphones
that they carry with them.
Some of my students have wireless earphones.
In fact I have a pair of wireless earphones too.
Personally, I think they're great.
I can put the earphones on without worry of
having any wires swinging, dangling and catching
things or getting in the way.
On the other hand one has to ask the question: are they safe?
You've got a small electronic device that's right up against your head Touching your head
and it's sending out radio signals
and it's receiving radio signals.
Of course a lot of the scientific studies so far say this is safe.
Well they said the same thing about DDT, didn't they?
In case you don't remember what DDT is,
it is an insecticide that they used to kill insects a long time ago.
The problem with DDT was it got inside the animals.
and then other animals ate them
and then birds ate those animals
and the DDT went inside the birds’ bodies.
The DDT killed the insects but it didn't kill the birds.
What it did do was it made the birds lay
eggs with incredibly thin shells.
The shells of the eggs were so thin that
when the bird sat on them they broke
and they couldn't make babies anymore.
I wonder, are we going to find some hidden
bad side to these wireless earphones in the future.?
Maybe they seem good today
but tomorrow we'll discover some hidden bad thing
that's damaging us or something around us
that we really don't want to damage.
Another thing I heard was that earphones are
not really good for your ears.
At least the ones that go inside your ears aren't good.
The big earphones that have cushions around them
and go on the outside of your ear
and strap over your head
are supposed to be much better for your ears,
Of course none of these earphones are good
if you turn the volume up too loud.
I was quite impressed with
my smartphone a couple years ago
because I turned the volume up
and after a few minutes the smartphone
turned the volume down without asking me.
what it did was
it turned the volume down and then it asked me
is this okay or do you really want it loud?
The message was clear to say that too loud is a little bit
dangerous for my ears over the long term.
Indeed people's ears have been damaged
by listening to loud sounds too close for too long.
If you like to use your earphones, I'm with you.
I like to use earphones.
they're great when I'm studying languages
and they help me to listen much better.
On the other hand there are
hidden dangers to these earphones.
One danger is damaging your ears.
Another danger is not hearing some of the Sounds in your environment, which could lead to accidents.
If you like to wear earphones, please be careful, but feel free to use them when you're listening to my podcast!
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