Concha Labs

Hello! Welcome to Concha Club. My name is Amy. Nobody knows why, but I've had hearing loss my whole life and have been wearing hearing aids for about 25 years. I've had some unfortunate experiences with hearing aids. In third grade, during recess, I was playing jumprope with classmates. I had my hair up in a ponytail. A girl asked: "what's that in your ears?" to which I replied "it's my hearing aid." She looked at it and said: "eww, it's gross." Her response made me feel disgusting and terrible. From the next 14 years, I made sure that nobody knew I had a hearing loss. I wore my hair down. At Stanford Graduate School of Business, I had the opportunity to share my hearing loss journey through a candid speech in front of a hundred of my classmates. After years of avoiding the topic of hearing loss, the chance to finally reflect and open up in front of a larger audience felt very personally fulfilling. As I researched the subject more, I realized that 23% of the US population (or nearly 1 in 4 people) has hearing loss! And, contrary to traditional marketing messages, half of the hearing loss population are younger and of working age. In fact, I am one of 4 million millennials in the US with hearing loss! Where is our voice, and where are our modern solutions? It is unfortunate that even though nearly 1 in 4 people have clinical hearing loss, few are willing to talk about their hearing loss. I am dedicating this facebook page to celebrating and sharing tips, insights, and experiences from a millennials' point of view on hearing loss to inspire conversation. Please join me in conversation and help the millions of people like us with hearing loss!