Most people will tell you they have very little difficulty hearing one-to-one. But turn the background music up loud enough, or get enough people talking at the same time, or put enough distance between you and the speaker in an echoey room and we all find the point at which we struggle.
So is that the environment, or our hearing?
Yes, it's a noisy world…
We live in an increasingly noisy world – something our hunter-gatherer ancestors would never have had to contend with!
- There are now over 7 billion people in the world—that's a lot of people all wanting their say!
- We're constantly surrounded by man-made machines and devices that are all adding to the general hubbub – everything from music players, to traffic noise, to mobile phones.
- Our environment is awash with echoes and reverberations from hard surfaces and high ceilings.
…and something's got to give
When the environment makes it difficult for us to hear in, we have two choices:
- We can either change our environment – which is often not very practical.
- Or we can “tool up” with modern technology.
Modern problems? Modern solutions.
Ultimately, modern problems call for modern solutions. And that's where hearing technology comes in, by digitally enhancing speech and background noise reduction.