Apparently it is not just us older people this bothers. A friend of mine has a 12 yo daughter that has taken to using the close caption instead of the volume. He took her in and there is nothing wrong with her hearing. She says the noise in the back ground makes it hard to hear the show. I tried watching her vampire show just to see what the big attraction is and after 15 minutes I turned it off-it gave me a headache from straining to hear the words.