 Matt Brady is a 22-year-old college student from the United States of America. In 2009, Matt was working out on a treadmill at home with the earbuds of his portable music player plugged in, but playing at a volume that his parents could hear a flaw below when he suddenly experienced a pain in his head and couldn't hear anything anymore. He suffered permanent hearing damage and has problems hearing when there is background noise. Matt joins us in the studio today. Matt, you participated in an event organised jointly by WHO and ITU called the Joint Stakeholders Consultation for Safe Listening Devices. You were invited as a keynote speaker to this event to tell your personal story. Can you tell us how that came about and a little bit about what happened to you in 2009? So back in the summer of 2009, I was using my iPod regularly while I would run on the treadmill and for recreational listening as well. But when I was using it, I was using it at a very high, high volume and eventually using it at such a high volume caught up with me and ended up damaging my hearing so that to this day I can no longer hear conversations in loud settings and sometimes struggle with using headphones for a long period of time because that can cause discomfort. What was it like speaking at the WHO ITU event and sharing your story? It was very powerful. I believe that education and advocacy is the best way for us to express to our young people that there is a problem that can come from extended use of listening devices at high volumes and so having the opportunity to share my story with the people who are going to be the leaders of that change was very important for me so that they know that this problem is real and affecting people. And what happened to you exactly? It's honestly very hard for me to describe because I'm still not exactly sure what happened but what I did notice was on that day that when I was done with my run on the treadmill and disconnected from my iPod, I was in pain and unable to hear which lasted for the good portion of that day and then as the summer dragged on I noticed I was continuing to have pain in my ears and my head and was beginning to have trouble hearing people in noisy situations which I never had before. Was it easy for the doctors to link the hearing damage that you suffered to you playing your music too loudly? Absolutely not. It took almost a year from the time I first noticed a problem to the time a doctor was conclusively able to link that. So it took multiple doctors from my pediatrician, my neurologist, multiple ear doctors and audiologists all who failed to grasp what had happened partially because any test that they ran came back as normal. So it took someone who really understood noise and noise-related hearing loss to say, yes, your iPod did cause this damage. What's your hearing condition like today? Today I still struggle immensely with conversations in noisy situations which for me is a big problem anytime I'm in a lunch room or restaurant or even sometimes in a classroom setting trying to have a group discussion that I can't hear people more than right next to me that if there's someone two people away from me I may not be able to hear what they say. And so that's an immense struggle trying to have a conversation with someone when you can't hear them. And for me when I was in high school that was a struggle because it was hard for me to make friends in the lunch room when I can't hear two people next to me. And what's your advice to all the people who listen to music too loudly? I would beg them to not keep the volume too loud. Surprisingly around 50% of the maximum volume which is what I use now is a safe level. Safe levels are not super low that you can't still enjoy your music with them but you just have to be responsible in what you're doing, be smart about your listening and if you're going to be listening for an extended period of time don't have the volume all the way up. What would you expect the industry and organizations such as WHO and ITU to do in this field? I would hope that they could be educators and advocates teaching people how to use their devices safely with the technology that exists and could potentially get developed to help that process and make them be better educated consumers aware that extended exposure from music players can cause long term hearing problems. I would not look forward to having my generation be extremely hard of hearing when we get older so I think education is the best way to help people learn that there is a problem register that what they can do is simple and take the changes that they need to protect their hearing for the long term.