Mayor Bloomberg to Sound Off on Earphone Safety

Fresh off a victory over 32-oz soft drink containers, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg reportedly hopes to tell residents of the Big Apple how to use their earphones. 

The New York Post reported Wednesday that New York City “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.”

Nancy Clark, assistant commissioner of environmental-disease prevention at the New York City Health Department told the Post that “[w]ith public and private support, a public-education campaign is being developed to raise awareness about safe use of personal music players… and risks of loud and long listening.” 

The City of New York is spending $250,000 to deliver the message of the Hearing Loss Prevention Media Campaign to teenagers and young adults through focus-group interviews, Twitter, and Facebook. The message, presumably, is that playing loud music in one’s headphones for too long could permanently damage that individual’s hearing.

Mayor Bloomberg remains unpopular in many areas of the city that were hit hard by Hurricane Sandy in fall os 2012. The city’s relief efforts were considered poor at best, and the mayor’s insistence that the New York City Marathon must go on several days after the hurricane hit left many residents appalled. Though Bloomberg finally relented and cancelled the marathon, the power generators and supplies that were supposed to be diverted from Manhattan to outlying areas did not arrive at their new destinations in a timely manner.