When Was Tinnitus Talk Founded?

[Jdborrelli]

I'm just curious because we only have just shy of 9,000 worldwide members but according statistics it affects around 35 million in the U.S only! I've watched our members grow from 5-10 a day but that still seems fairly low. Having awareness is so important and having a large community come together plays an enormous roll in this! Any thoughts on this? Is this condition more uncommon than we are led to believe?

Also,

Do you think tinnitus will become a larger issue with the new generation of children growing up with headphones in their ears basically ALL day?

 

[erik]

TT was founded in 2011. Membership is fairly low (compared to the report number of people with T) for a number of reasons --Some people don't realize they have tinnitus or may not know what it is, many people with T are older and not as tech savvy to be online and/or even know about Tinnitus Talk. Probably the biggest reason is that many people with T simply don't have an issue with it enough to seek it out on the internet.

 

[Jdborrelli]

It just seems strange that if people arnt that bothered by it than they don't search for it online. But wouldn't that mean they are not actively taking steps to protect themselves? Therefore wouldn't these people (unknowingly) do something they shouldn't and cause their tinnitus to spike. This would eventually lead them here! Idk seems strange. 9000 for a worldwide forum for an issue affecting probably close to 100 million people.

 

[erik]

It just seems strange that if people arnt that bothered by it than they don't search for it online. But wouldn't that mean they are not actively taking steps to protect themselves? Therefore wouldn't these people (unknowingly) do something they shouldn't and cause their tinnitus to spike. This would eventually lead them here! Idk seems strange. 9000 for a worldwide forum for an issue affecting probably close to 100 million people.

I would further add that we get many more visitors that do not register at all. Many just come to the site to read information about Tinnitus and never become members or care to participate.

 

[ChrisJ]

I think when it comes to online forums the priority is quality over quantity and clarity over volume. I have been on forums before which got too big too quickly and lost their community spirit. They became a lot harder to moderate too and were more prone to attacks.

I was one of those people who didn't realise he had tinnitus until I found this forum and others like it. I had it my whole life and thought it was normal. It was only when it got a lot worse that I looked it up and then what made me join in here was a sense of debt, like I had got all this information from this community of people and I felt like I wanted to repay that debt by adding more to it so that people in future could benefit from it.

I think adding in linked data to the forum software would be good as well as some databasing of some of the patient reports on treatments which could serve as good meta data for researchers.

What you will find though is that 98% of the people on the forum will just lurk. But the people who show up and reveal themselves are exactly the right people we want to have around for the most part.