The experience of sound by teenagers in their everyday environment

Noise is a growing health problem. People are not always aware of the injuries that noise can cause. The media culture of today has a big influence on teenagers. This is caused by portable music players, computers, concerts etc. The schools are having larg classes and that can cause a lot irrelevant speech during lessons. Today studies shows that irrelevant speech from other class-mates actually is the biggest source of disturbance and it cause secondary effects as headache and tiredness. The aim of this study is to gain insight of what teenagers think about different sounds in their everyday environment. We are interested in this because there are not many studies about how teenagers are affected by noise and their knowledge about it. In this qualitative study we have interviewed six high school students from two different high schools. The interviews were analyzed by the use of IPA method (Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis). The results reveal that teenagers do not have much knowledge about affects of noise and the injuries it can cause. The interviewed objects knew about the fact that earplugs protect their hearing, but the knowledge of different types of earplugs and their range of usability was limited