Problems
Caused by Environmental Noise
Noises from automobiles, buses, trains, planes. and leaf
blowers — frequently encountered in an urban
environment — prevent hearing quieter sounds. There
are three problems that occur due to environmental noise.
The first problem is that environmental noise masks
the fainter audio portions of a signal from being heard.
The second problem is that the soft speech sounds, critical
to speech intelligibility, are the first to be masked
— giving everyone a hearing impairment — making
it more difficult and fatiguing to understand a phone
conversation or audio book.
The third problem is that people turn up the volume
in order to hear, and then leave it turned up, either
because they become accustomed to the high volume,
or do not want to be bothered with continually
adjusting the volume in response to continually fluctuating
noise levels. The danger is that this behavior can result
in hearing loss.
