Abstract

Advancement on portable audio players technologies as well as the reduction on their costs are causing a large increase in the use of such devices. One of the adverse consequences is that people who persist in using portable players in noisy urban areas may suffer irreversible hearing loss. The present work consists in evaluating the usage habits of portable audio players with earphones by adolescents. To that purpose, surveys were applied in a public technical school near to Buenos Aires and in a private religious school in Buenos Aires. To complement this analysis, the proportion of young people using earphones in the street and public transportation was quantified. The main survey analysis variables were: daily and weekly period of use, age of initiation into the habit, subjective playback levels and type of used headphones. The results indicates that the percentage of young people using personal audio players on street and public transportation reaches the 40%, the average daily usage time exceeds 2 hours and the most common age of habit initiation is 12 years old.