Discover Your Hearing Age with This Quick Frequency Test
An online hearing test developed by UK-based educational organization eChalk plays increasingly higher-frequency sounds to determine the age of a person's ears. Participants are asked to stop the test when they can no longer hear the sound, revealing their ears' age. While hearing experts consider it a "good party trick," it can also serve as a useful tool for identifying individuals experiencing a decline in their hearing. The test measures hearing in hertz (Hz) and suggests that by age 20, most people can only hear sounds below 18,000 Hz, and by age 50, sounds below 12,000 Hz. However, audiologists caution that these tests lack the sensitivity and specificity to provide a comprehensive diagnosis of hearing loss. Age-related hearing loss, known as presbycusis, typically affects high-pitched sounds first and is more common among older adults.