Recently, I've been wondering if all that listening is bad for me.

最近，我一直在想，這些聽力是否對我有害。

And this led to a full-on spiral where I learned the horrifying statistic that over a billion young adults are at risk of permanent avoidable hearing loss.

在那裡，我瞭解到一個令人震驚的統計數據：超過十億的年輕成年人面臨著可避免的永久性聽力損失的風險。

Am I one of those billion?

我是那十億人中的一員嗎？

In a time where we're giving our ears less of a break than ever before, how can we make sure that we're not losing our hearing long-term?

在我們的耳朵比以往任何時候都更難休息的時候，如何才能確保我們不會長期喪失聽力？

And what tools are at our disposal to ensure that we can minimize that damage?

我們有哪些工具可以確保將這種損害降至最低？

Power on.

電源開啟。

Headphones are not necessarily bad.

耳機不一定不好。

Like, you know, if you wear headphones, you're not automatically going to develop hearing loss.

比如，如果你戴著耳機，並不會自動患上聽力損失。

That's Amy Sarrow.

這位是 Amy Sarrow。

I'm a doctor of audiology, so I often go by Dr. Amy.

我是一名聽力學醫生，所以我經常叫自己 Amy 醫生。

Dr. Amy explains to me just how fragile our hearing is.

Amy 醫生向我解釋了我們的聽力有多麼脆弱。

It all has to do with these tiny hair cells in our ears.

這一切都與我們耳朵裡的微小毛細胞有關。

So when your hair cells are healthy, they stand up kind of like a field of wheat.

當你的頭髮細胞健康時，它們就會像麥田一樣挺立起來。

And when the sound comes through, it looks like a tornado has come through and they're all twisted up.

當聲音傳過來時，就像龍捲風刮過，它們都扭曲了。

If you're lucky, they're able to sort of rebuild themselves back straight up nice and tall.

如果運氣好的話，它們還能重新站起來，又高又壯。

But if you do that often enough or if the sound is loud enough, the damage is permanent.

但是，如果你經常這樣做，或者聲音足夠大，傷害就是永久性的。

Permanent in the sense that those hairs are bent out of shape forever.

永久性是指這些毛髮永遠彎曲變形。

And your hearing doesn't come back.

你的聽力也不會恢復。

Not naturally, nor do we have treatments that can reverse the effects of it.

自然不會，我們也沒有可以扭轉其影響的治療方法。

This permanent damage is caused by both duration and loudness, which is measured in decibels.

這種永久性損害是由持續時間和響度（以分貝為組織、部門）造成的。

And it works on a logarithmic scale, which means if you're listening to something at 85 decibels and then you raise the volume to 88 decibels, you've actually doubled the loudness, even though it's such a small shift.

它的運作原理是對數刻度，也就是說，如果你聽的聲音是 85 分貝，然後你把音量提高到 88 分貝，你實際上已經把響度提高了一倍，儘管這只是一個很小的變化。

And this is where things can quickly get dangerous because we're often listening louder than we realize.

這就是事情會迅速變得危險的地方，因為我們傾聽的聲音往往比我們意識到的要大。

A lot of times it was 110 decibels or it was over 100 decibels.

很多時候是 110 分貝或超過 100 分貝。

And it's easy to do because you turn the volume up when you like a song and you don't realize how loud that is.

這很容易做到，因為當你喜歡一首歌時，你會把音量開得很大，而你並沒有意識到音量有多大。

Especially if you're trying to overpower the sound of a train or the buzz of a coffee shop or your neighbors mowing their lawn.

尤其是當你想蓋過火車聲、咖啡店的嗡嗡聲或鄰居修剪草坪的聲音時。

So for context, the U.S. Department of Labor recommends no more than eight hours of 85 decibel exposure to be considered a safe working environment.

美國美國勞工部建議，85 分貝的暴露時間不超過 8 小時才算是安全的工作環境。

If you dig into your settings on your phone, you can limit your volume to a certain decibel threshold.

如果你對手機進行設定，就可以將音量限制在一定的分貝範圍內。

But if doing so prevents you from hearing clearly, well, maybe you can lower the volume of the world around you.

但如果這樣做會讓你聽不清楚，那麼，也許你可以降低周圍世界的音量。

Power on.

電源開啟。

The sound you're hearing is coming from this device, which is meant to record what you'd actually hear if you were in this space and if you were using these headphones.

你聽到的聲音來自這個設備，它記錄的是如果你在這個空間裡，如果你使用這個耳機，你實際聽到的聲音。

Power on.

電源開啟。

Now, if I'm honest, I always thought that noise cancellation was kind of a marketing tactic, you know, like a neat feature that was pretty cool, but not 100% necessary.

老實說，我一直認為降噪是一種行銷手段，就像一個很酷的功能，但並非 100% 必要。

The more I talk to experts, the more I realize that it's actually a protective line of defense in noisy environments.

與專家交流得越多，我就越意識到，在嘈雜的環境中，這其實是一道保護性防線。

There are two types of noise cancellation.

降噪有兩種類型。

Passive noise cancellation, which is when something is physically blocking the sound from coming in, and active noise cancellation.

被動降噪和主動降噪，被動降噪是指有物體阻擋聲音傳入，主動降噪是指有物體阻擋聲音傳入。

Power on.

電源開啟。

This is when the headphones have mics that can listen to the sound of the environment.

這時，耳機上的麥克風可以聆聽環境的聲音。

For simplicity's sake, let's visualize this as a singular wave.

為了簡單起見，讓我們把它想象成一個單一的波浪。

The headphones hear that wave, analyze it, and then generate a sound wave that's the exact inverse of it.

耳機聽到聲波，對其進行分析，然後產生與之完全相反的聲波。

An anti-wave, if you will.

可以說是一種反浪潮。

When you put the two together, you get silence.

當你把兩者結合在一起時，你就會得到寂靜。

Or close to it, anyways.

不管怎麼說，也差不多了。

Our environment is much more complicated than one wave.

我們的環境遠比一個波浪複雜得多。

There's tons of different dynamic sounds happening all at the same time.

有大量不同的動態聲音同時出現。

Noise-canceling headphones are best at removing persistent low-frequency hums, anything in the 1,000 hertz range or below.

降噪耳機最擅長消除持續的低頻嗡嗡聲，即 1000 赫茲或以下的任何聲音。

Think airplane turbines, trains, engine noise.

想想飛機渦輪、火車、發動機噪音。

But that doesn't mean no sound gets in.

但這並不意味著沒有聲音傳入。

What's not going to work well with that are higher-frequency sounds.

而高頻率的聲音則不能很好地與之配合。

So these would be like birds chirping or a sudden loud sound.

這些聲音就像鳥鳴或突然響起的巨響。

It doesn't have a chance to analyze and decide what to do with that, so usually the sound is just going to come through.

它沒有機會分析和決定如何處理這些聲音，所以聲音通常會直接傳過來。

And when the world still seems too loud, but like, emotionally speaking, sometimes I find it helpful to pause, take a second, and maybe even find somebody to talk to.

當世界仍然顯得太喧囂時，但就情感而言，有時我發現暫停一下，靜一靜，甚至找個人聊聊天，都會很有幫助。

And that's where the sponsor of this video comes in, BetterHelp.

這就是本影片的贊助商 BetterHelp 的作用所在。

Sponsors like BetterHelp make videos like this possible.

像 BetterHelp 這樣的贊助商使這樣的影片成為可能。

If you're thinking of starting therapy, think about giving BetterHelp a try.

如果你正在考慮開始治療，不妨試試 BetterHelp。

It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule.

該課程完全採線上制，設計方便、靈活，適合你的日程安排。

So take a moment visit betterhelp.com/voxvideo to get 10% off your first month.

所以，請花點時間前往 betterhelp.com/voxvideo，即可享受首月九折優惠。

That's betterhelp.com/voxvideo.

是 betterhelp.com/voxvideo 喔。

Now, time to get back to the video.

現在，該回到影片了。

Creating silence in an otherwise noisy environment feels like magic, but it also leads to some weird questions, like does noise cancellation have volume?

在原本嘈雜的環境中創造寧靜，感覺就像變魔術一樣，但這也引出了一些奇怪的問題，比如降噪是否有音量？

In other words, if we're pumping an anti-sound wave to create silence, are our brains inserting into silence while our ear hair cells are still getting wrecked in a quiet tornado?

換句話說，如果我們用反聲波來製造安靜，那麼當我們的耳毛細胞還在安靜的龍捲風中遭受破壞時，我們的大腦是否已經進入了安靜狀態？

If it's working properly, it will not produce a sound.

如果工作正常，就不會發出聲音。

My name is Luke Keller, and I'm a professor of physics and astronomy at Ithaca College.

我叫 Luke Keller，是伊薩卡學院物理學和天文學教授。

You can think about it farther up the stream at the eardrum as bouncing back and forth in response to sound waves, but if they're canceled, it's not moving.

你可以把它想象成在鼓膜的更遠處，隨著聲波來回跳動，但如果聲波被取消，它就不動了。

There's no vibration to transmit to the inner ear.

沒有振動傳遞到內耳。

So it is literally making the sound go away.

它真的能讓聲音消失。

There's no negative effect.

沒有負面影響。

The cancellation happens completely in the electronics, not in your head.

降噪功能完全發生在電子設備中，而不是在你的頭腦中。

So noise canceling actually does remove the sound, leaving our ear hair cells largely unaffected.

降噪功能實際上確實能消除聲音，而我們的耳毛細胞則基本不受影響。

And that's true of just about any pair of headphones that have noise canceling.

幾乎所有具有降噪功能的耳機都是如此。

So don't feel obligated to get the most expensive, best ones.

不要覺得一定要買最貴、最好的。

Any halfway decent pair will work well enough to protect your ears.

任何一副半成品都能很好地保護你的耳朵。

But it is important to note that noise canceling headphones don't work on everything.

但需要注意的是，降噪耳機並非對所有東西都有效。

Like, if you go to a concert or need to operate a jackhammer, there are way better ways to protect your ears.

比如，如果你去聽音樂會或需要使用電鑽，有更好的方法來保護你的耳朵。

But the important thing is that we should be making a conscious effort to protect them.

但重要的是，我們應該有意識地保護它們。

We think about putting on sunscreen, and we can see when we have a sunburn, but noise damage is invisible.

我們會想著塗防曬，曬傷了也能看出來，但噪音的傷害是看不見的。

So it's up to us to be thinking about it, to be mindful of it, and to save our ears.

所以我們應該思考它、關注它，並保護我們的耳朵。