Train your kids on the dangers of using earphones, especially when outdoors

Last week one of the papers reported a tragic accident along the Nairobi-Ruiru railway line where a man was struck by a speeding train. The victim, who was wearing earphones, did not hear the train approaching, according to police reports. Despite the train sounding its horn as a warning, the man, oblivious to the imminent danger, continued to cross the railway line. This is an unnecessary loss of life.

Some years back, a similar thing happened overseas to the son of a prominent person. The young man was putting on headphones when a helicopter crushed him to death. He had set the volume so higj that he could not even hear the warnings from people around. We must help the youth make sure they are able to be aware of their surroundings, what in security we refer to as situational awareness.

Even us when we were young it was a fashionable to walk with what we referred to as Walkman with big headphones that were padded. The only thing that maybe saved most of us from Eastland's is that Walkman used to play tape and that meant consuming a lot of battery energy. That needed a lot of extra cash to buy new batteries so few people could afford using it except maybe for an hour when at home. Issue of battery was serious that one used to carry a bic pen so as to use to rewind or forward the tape. One used to know guys who had a set of Walkman as their was a believe that when one exposes the batteries in the sun they will recharge. So outside their windows one could see a lot of batteries having being exposed to the sun.

With technology came the earphones and the phone so the issue of batteries was a non-issue. The only problem is that the society did not advice the youth that knowing your surroundings is one fundamental of security. One can enjoy their music by simply putting low volume, plugging only one earphone, hanging the earphones around your ears without inserting or getting the quality ones that can make you hear external sounds.

As a society we should train our kids on the dangers of using earphones especially outside and dangers of putting the volume high when in use. Situational awareness by knowing what is going on in your surrounding is important and can be the difference between life and death.