Nanny NYC Mayor Wants Ear Buds Crackdown

NYC Mayor Bloomberg — who has already cracked down on smoking, junk food, trans fats, salt and super-sized drinks — is embarking on a new crusade: preventing New Yorkers from going deaf.

According to The New York Post, health officials are planning a social-media campaign to warn young people about the risk of losing their hearing from listening to music at high volume on personal MP3 players, The Post has learned.

The campaign, which will cost $250,000, is being financed through a grant received from the Fund for Public Health, the Health Department’s fund-raising arm.

The Hearing Loss Prevention Media Campaign will target teens and young adults, conducting focus-group interviews and using social-media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Bloomberg has had a bug about ear-splitting rackets since taking office at City Hall, making noise reduction one of his key quality-of-life initiatives.

In 2005, he signed a law — “Operation Silent Night” — overhauling the noise code. It cracked down on jolting jackhammer sounds at construction sites and on music blaring out of clubs, helping “make New York quieter and more liveable.”

The iPod generation is the first to use “buds” that are inserted directly into the ears. And modern music players are more of a threat to hearing than the Sony Walkman of the 1980s, experts say.

The new players hold thousands of songs and have longer-life batteries, which results in more extended and high-volume listening, health experts said.

An iPod at maximum volume reaches 115 decibels. Research says 85 decibels is safe.

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