A few years back I went totally deaf in my right ear. It was pretty harrowing, but turned out to be a virus, and my hearing returned in about a week.
As part of the follow up, I had a full hearing exam. The audiologist found my hearing was normal for my age, but went on to explain that everyone's hearing degrades as they age. At my age, she said, the situation that has the most pronounced impact is in moderately noisy environments like restaurants or coffee shops during conversation. The background frequencies drown out the frequencies of the human voice and my aging hears have a more difficult time separating the voice from the background noise.
Anecdotally, Mrs. Mar notes that in general, I speak more loudly than I did as a younger man.
11thEarlOfMar|10 years ago
As part of the follow up, I had a full hearing exam. The audiologist found my hearing was normal for my age, but went on to explain that everyone's hearing degrades as they age. At my age, she said, the situation that has the most pronounced impact is in moderately noisy environments like restaurants or coffee shops during conversation. The background frequencies drown out the frequencies of the human voice and my aging hears have a more difficult time separating the voice from the background noise.
Anecdotally, Mrs. Mar notes that in general, I speak more loudly than I did as a younger man.
Alas....