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The Effects Of Hearing And Sound On An Organization On The Economic Scale

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The ability to hear is one of life’s great luxuries. Though it is possible to live with hearing loss, I cannot deny the impact hearing and sound has on my daily activities. From listening to my professors, to the numerous interactions I have on my cell phone, sound permeates all facets of my life. Not only is sound critical to my daily activities, it can impact an organization on the economic scale.
For most of my life I worked for and with various manufacturing companies. During this time I have been exposed to industrial sounds that are often of higher intensity and or unusual frequencies (Mihailović, D., Djurić, N., Kovačević, I., & Mihailović, D., 2016, p. 1030). I can honestly say that no one manufacturer is alike, even in …show more content…

These sounds sometimes damage sensitive structures in the inner ear, which can lead to noise-induced hearing loss (Noise Induced Hearing Loss, 2017).
Hearing loss affects more than 13% of the working population (Neitzel, R. L., Swinburn, T. K., Hammer, M. S., & Eisenberg, D., 2017, p.182). To the casual observer that doesn’t seem like much, but if the hearing loss resulting from excessive noise exposure were prevented, the economic benefit would be estimated at a range of $58 billion to $152 billion annually, with a core estimate of $123 billion (Neitzel 2017, p.182). Personally I feel like that is a lot of money to be leaving on the table. Aside from the financial loss, noise is seen as an environmental stressor with serious effects on workers’ mood, attention, job satisfaction, psychological well-being, stress and performance. Regardless, researches did not find direct effects of noise on productivity in industry (Mihailović, D, 2016, p.1031)
Despite workers’ potential to adapt to noise, there are personal costs and consequences on health. There is growing evidence to suggest, that exposure to high intensity noise negatively affects both the functioning of the autonomic nervous system an individual’s mental health (Mihailović, D, 2016, p.1031). In particular, the auditory effects can include the shift of hearing threshold and deterioration of speech perception (Neitzel 2017, p.182). Furthermore, research has shown, that exposure

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