Apple Hearing Study 2023 update: 1 in 3 adult Americans exposed to excess noise

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• Reply 1 of 13

  waveparticle Posts: 1,497member

  April 27, 2023 3:11AM

  The gym I go to plays music extremely loud. I talked to the staff asking if they can lower the volume. The staff won't do. I then use dBMeter app found it reaches 80 db. I talked to staff again. The staff still won't do. It is a sad thing. I estimate 50% of the customers are wearing iPod or something else. 

  

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• Reply 2 of 13

  spheric Posts: 2,734member

  April 27, 2023 9:40AM

  waveparticle said:

  The gym I go to plays music extremely loud. I talked to the staff asking if they can lower the volume. The staff won't do. I then use dBMeter app found it reaches 80 db. I talked to staff again. The staff still won't do. It is a sad thing. I estimate 50% of the customers are wearing iPod or something else. 

  80 dB is okay for a while. Above 90 is where it gets critical. 

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• Reply 3 of 13

  respencer Posts: 20member

  April 27, 2023 1:22PM

  I run outside most of the time. One thing I found is that if there is a wind blowing at 10 MPH or stronger, it sets off the loud noises alarm on my Apple Watch. But then, it also sets off the "fall" alarm when I am picking rocks in the back yard. It also seems to work well when I actually fall :-)

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• Reply 4 of 13

  mike1 Posts: 3,472member

  April 27, 2023 3:50PM

  I get a sound alert when I drive with the windows open on the highway. Oh well.
  

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• Reply 5 of 13

  slavelaborapp Posts: 2member

  April 27, 2023 6:23PM

  I guess that Apple neglected to include sound levels from their own retail stores. Convenient…
  
  Setting ambient store music at 75db, add an average of 300-500 human voices(at any given time), add music and the creative’s microphone turned up to overcome the now 85db of sound while leading a forum class and you’re now at 85-100db+ for your shift as an Apple retail employee. Managers don’t care, store leader doesn’t care, corporate specialists don’t care. The hearing of every employee in that environment for any time has been damaged. Many have hearing loss and permanent damage included ringing in their ears. Even the Yelp reviews reflect customer complaints about excessive noise as often as all other complaints. 
  

  

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• Reply 6 of 13

  strangedays Posts: 13,165member

  April 27, 2023 6:54PM

  BiC said:

  waveparticle said:

  The gym I go to plays music extremely loud. I talked to the staff asking if they can lower the volume. The staff won't do. I then use dBMeter app found it reaches 80 db. I talked to staff again. The staff still won't do. It is a sad thing. I estimate 50% of the customers are wearing iPod or something else. 

  
  Change the Gym Brother, plenty of fish in the Wave.  Better yet, just do everything outdoors rain or shine.
  

  I presume you’re referring to cardio activities, while overlooking that gyms are great places for strength training using extremely versatile barbells.  

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• Reply 7 of 13

  strangedays Posts: 13,165member

  April 27, 2023 6:58PM

  slavelaborapp said:

  I guess that Apple neglected to include sound levels from their own retail stores. Convenient…
  
  Setting ambient store music at 75db, add an average of 300-500 human voices(at any given time), add music and the creative’s microphone turned up to overcome the now 85db of sound while leading a forum class and you’re now at 85-100db+ for your shift as an Apple retail employee. Managers don’t care, store leader doesn’t care, corporate specialists don’t care. The hearing of every employee in that environment for any time has been damaged. Many have hearing loss and permanent damage included ringing in their ears. Even the Yelp reviews reflect customer complaints about excessive noise as often as all other complaints. 
  

  Apple didn’t neglect anything — this study is run by the University of Michigan and has nothing to do w/ particular retailers. 
  
  That being said, I’ve been inside plenty of Apple Stores and they’re not different than a million other similar environments. I’ve seen the class speaker and they’re mic’ed to a quiet system for the table and doesn’t carry much further. 

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• Reply 8 of 13

  slavelaborapp Posts: 2member

  April 27, 2023 8:06PM

  StrangeDays said:

  slavelaborapp said:

  I guess that Apple neglected to include sound levels from their own retail stores. Convenient…
  
  Setting ambient store music at 75db, add an average of 300-500 human voices(at any given time), add music and the creative’s microphone turned up to overcome the now 85db of sound while leading a forum class and you’re now at 85-100db+ for your shift as an Apple retail employee. Managers don’t care, store leader doesn’t care, corporate specialists don’t care. The hearing of every employee in that environment for any time has been damaged. Many have hearing loss and permanent damage included ringing in their ears. Even the Yelp reviews reflect customer complaints about excessive noise as often as all other complaints. 
  

  Apple didn’t neglect anything — this study is run by the University of Michigan and has nothing to do w/ particular retailers. 
  
  That being said, I’ve been inside plenty of Apple Stores and they’re not different than a million other similar environments. I’ve seen the class speaker and they’re mic’ed to a quiet system for the table and doesn’t carry much further. 

  So I’m guessing your “plenty of Apple Stores” didn’t include any stores with a 30’ tall by 70’ wide screen and stadium sized speakers known as a “Forum”? Don’t dismiss what others are sharing simply because you haven’t seen, heard or experienced it. To the 200+ retail employees working at theses locations that DO have these features, the struggle is real and the conditions of that for a work environment is unreasonable.
  
  Apple is part of the study by providing the hardware, software and platform for the university to gather data and statistics from. So yes, Apple is as much involved in the study as the university. That is obvious. “ Apple's ongoing hearing study, in partnership with the University of Michigan, shared an update for International Noise Awareness Day with some bad news for Americans.”

  edited April 2023

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• Reply 9 of 13

  omasou Posts: 650member

  April 27, 2023 11:16PM

  Not surprising. I cut the grass w/my watch on. I ride my motorcycle w/my watch on. etc. Doesn't mean, I'm not wearing hearing protection.
  
  The results presented here are sort of misleading and meaningless. Yeah, I may have been exposed to excessive noise levels but doesn't mean my ears were exposed.
  
  They really need to qualify the exposer. Let see some AI audio analysis to what the noise may have been.

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• Reply 10 of 13

  laytech Posts: 342member

  April 28, 2023 1:51AM

  These figures are skewed and headlong grabbing. The amount of noise alerts I get just taking a shower, shows the data can be inaccurate.

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• Reply 11 of 13

  strangedays Posts: 13,165member

  April 28, 2023 1:50PM

  slavelaborapp said:

  StrangeDays said:

  slavelaborapp said:

  I guess that Apple neglected to include sound levels from their own retail stores. Convenient…
  
  Setting ambient store music at 75db, add an average of 300-500 human voices(at any given time), add music and the creative’s microphone turned up to overcome the now 85db of sound while leading a forum class and you’re now at 85-100db+ for your shift as an Apple retail employee. Managers don’t care, store leader doesn’t care, corporate specialists don’t care. The hearing of every employee in that environment for any time has been damaged. Many have hearing loss and permanent damage included ringing in their ears. Even the Yelp reviews reflect customer complaints about excessive noise as often as all other complaints. 
  

  Apple didn’t neglect anything — this study is run by the University of Michigan and has nothing to do w/ particular retailers. 
  
  That being said, I’ve been inside plenty of Apple Stores and they’re not different than a million other similar environments. I’ve seen the class speaker and they’re mic’ed to a quiet system for the table and doesn’t carry much further. 

  So I’m guessing your “plenty of Apple Stores” didn’t include any stores with a 30’ tall by 70’ wide screen and stadium sized speakers known as a “Forum”? Don’t dismiss what others are sharing simply because you haven’t seen, heard or experienced it. To the 200+ retail employees working at theses locations that DO have these features, the struggle is real and the conditions of that for a work environment is unreasonable.
  
  Apple is part of the study by providing the hardware, software and platform for the university to gather data and statistics from. So yes, Apple is as much involved in the study as the university. That is obvious. “ Apple's ongoing hearing study, in partnership with the University of Michigan, shared an update for International Noise Awareness Day with some bad news for Americans.”

  Nah you’re the one who made blanket claims about all Apple stores when it sounds like you have an issue with one store somewhere. I’ve been in countless Apple Stores across the country and they seemed no different than other retail. 
  
  Again, Apple did not design this study. UoM did, using the research framework of the Apple Watch and iPhone app. I’ve been participating in it for years, and there no magic carve outs for Apple Stores…if the decibels are high it gets logged whenever you are. 
  
  Any more crank conspiracy theories?

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• Reply 12 of 13

  damonf Posts: 232member

  May 2, 2023 12:34AM

  There’s one significant flaw to the study. I’m not sure if the Apple Watch picks up on one wearing AirPods Pro.  But in any case, they absolutely don’t pick up on the user wearing any other hearing protection. I wear my watch while mowing, paired to my 3M WorkTunes hearing protector. The Watch alerts to the loudness of the mower, even though it is actively paired via BlueTooth to the WorkTunes. More importantly, when the “Mute for…” options are offered, there is no option “I’m wearing 3rd party hearing protection”, to indicate to the Watch (and thus the Health app and the study) that one is using earplugs or ear-cupped protection like the WorkTunes. So the study data is faulty because they always assume your ears are unprotected (with an exception possibly for in-use AirPods Pro).

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