London - Today’s headphone-wearing generation risks forgetting how to listen – leaving them deaf to the beauty of nature, an expert has warned.
Kurt Fristrup, a senior scientist with the US National Park Service, said our modern-day obsession with wearing earphones to block out life around us could create a ‘learned deafness’ and a ‘generational amnesia’.
Today’s young people risk not only missing out on the wonder of birdsong or the babble of a stream, but also on their calming effect.
Dr Fristrup said: ‘What is worry about is when that generation of listeners come to national parks, they just may not be able to reach out and hear and experience everything around them.
‘Even in some of our cities, there are birds and things to appreciate.’
The researcher, who is an expert on the effects of noise on wildlife, said that our ears are switched on all the time – even when asleep or anaesthetised during surgery.
With everyday life becoming noisier, it is not surprising that people put on headphones to try to block out distractions.
However, this can lead to them forgetting how to listen when they take their earphones out.
Dr Fristrup said: ‘I think this learned deafness is a real issue, where we condition ourselves to ignore the information coming through our ears.’
Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual conference, he told how when he goes hiking, his friends are almost deaf to the dozens of aircraft flying overhead.
As a result, they are astonished when he tells them how many jets, helicopters and other planes have passed by.
The researcher said: ‘Even for people who are interested in nature, who go out and spend a lot of time there, this gift that we are born with, to be able to reach out and hear things that are hundreds of metres away, all these incredibly subtle sounds, it is in danger of being lost. There is a generational amnesia problem.’
His warning comes as other research underlines the benefits of listening to nature.
Studies from Pennsylvania State University showed that hearing the sounds of waterfalls, birdsong and even the wind in the trees, has a calming effect.
In one experiment, these sounds helped people who had been given just a few minutes’ warning of giving a speech relax more quickly.
In contrast, those who heard revving of motorbikes and other manmade noises took longer to calm down than those who heard nothing at all.
In a second experiment, people found it easier to remember and recite a long number if they were played natural sounds first.
Interestingly, these sounds had to be loud to be effective.
Researcher Dr Derrick Taff said this may be because the young people who were being tested have lost the ability to properly hear what is going on around them, as suggested by Dr Fristrup.
It is thought we may have evolved to feel calmer when it is peaceful because we can relax knowing there is nothing nearby that can harm us.
In contrast, when it is noisy, we don’t know what is out there.
Dr Fristrup speculated: ‘Our deep ancestor group were probably quite anxious little apes because they weren’t the fastest or the best armed thing around and there were a lot of predators that they had to attend to.
‘I suspect there is something about these natural soundscapes that reminds the primitive part of our brains of a place that was safe, where there’s no auditory sense of a predator nearby.
‘And I suspect these more cluttered soundscapes are problematic because we know that we’ve lost that surveillance capability.’
Daily Mail