Since I have looked at many wives tales lately, I am starting to question if any of them have any accuracy. Something my mom has always bugged me about it listening to my music too loud with my headphones. It doesn’t seem to matter how low I have the volume on, she is going to hear it and yell at me. She always tells me that I am going to lose my hearing because of them. I normally roll my eyes and keep listening to whatever how I want. At Penn State, so many kids wear their headphones. It is hard to walk from my dorm to class without seeing at least fifty pairs of them. My mom’s nagging rings in my ears. Are headphones bad for your hearing? Turns out not all wives tales are fiction.
Headphones initially came onto the scene in 1910 by Nathaniel Baldwin. They were then used heavily by the US Navy and expanded upon by then. Headphones were fairly constant in their shape and size (imagine chunkier Beats) until the early 2000’s when Apple made the new design popular. Everyone knows of the little white headphones that you stick directly into your ears. They don’t cancel out noise like old shape did and the fact that they settle inside your ear allows music to go directly into your ear canal. Now every 1 in 5 teen suffers from some kind of hearing loss. Experts think it is because of the new style of headphones.
Popular headphones now sit in your ear canal. This puts the music very close to your inner year, the sensitive part of year. This “turns” up the volume on ear damage more than people are aware. Volume is the culprit when it comes to ear damage and headphones. An iPod at 70% of its maximum volume is around 85 decibels of noise. An audiologist at Wichita State University randomly pulled headphones out of his students’ ears. Most students listen to their iPods between 110-120 decibels. Music this loud causes hearing loss in just an hour and fifteen minutes.We cringe when we hear loud noises, such as chainsaws and motorcycles, but those noises are only around 100 decibels sound. Basically, students are unknowingly putting more than that magnitude in their ears for hours at a time. The maximum volume teenagers should listen to from their device is 60%, so most teens are doubling the recommended volume. This is where hearing loss comes in.
Headphones cause permanent hearing loss by damaging the inner ear. The ear has three parts, the outer ear, middle ear, and inner ear, that all work together to process sounds. Inside the inner ear is a structure called the cochlea, which is covered in little hairs. These hairs send sound messages to the brain when received. With loud music, these hairs can get damaged or destroyed. This means the cochlea that cannot send the sound messages to the brain and therefore, your hearing becomes damaged. Once this loss occurs, it can never heal. A study at Tel Aviv University has examined this theory. The first stage of the study involved 289 participants aged 13 to 17. They answered questions about how often they used their personal listening devices and the volume they did so at. In the second stage, the researchers measured the listening levels of 74 of the teens in quiet and nosy environments. They then used the measured volume levels to calculate the risk of damaging their hearing. They discovered that one in four kids are in risk of hearing loss directly due to listening to loud music with headphones for long periods of time.
So what does this mean? Headphone lovers will argue that these are all just observations. Scientists are just looking at teenager’s personal listening device’s habits and then looking at ears for damage. They are not actively experimenting. Correlation does not equal causation. However, all the data seems extremely consistent with the hypothesis that headphones cause permanent damage to listening. I suspect the reason why I couldn’t find any experiments on this was because doctors are so certain that headphones cause hearing loss that most experiments would then be unethical on humans. Headphones can still be used. Scientists have discovered the sweet spot for listening without hearing damage as 60% of the maximum volume for no more than hour. Even better would to resort to the older style of the over the ear headphones. Some people may not find them fashionable, but their eyes will thank them.
This post was very relevant to me as I am listening to music almost all day long through headphones. I have often had people tell me to turn it down and my parents have said that it causes hearing damage but I was never actually sure. However, after reading this article I do agree that with having music playing directly into ones ears, there can be damage done in regard to hearing. Some variables that I think could also be included in future studies are the genre of music as well as whether or not the person is used to listening to music at particular volumes for certain durations. I think that for me personally, my hearing has developed and maybe even strengthened. For example when I am talking to someone with one earbud in, I used to struggle to hear both but now it is very easy for me.
Wow. Just got a new pair of Beats by Dre for my birthday. I max them out for noise cancellation. Your post came just in time. But considering that ear at times build up on wax to protect itself, I guess my next question would be do certain companies lead to more wax build up than others when played at max?
Uh oh…. I have headphones in all the time and I love my music loud. It’s just one of those things that we know we shouldn’t do, we know is bad for us, but do anyway without a second thought. Maybe after reading this and hearing some of the specifics I will think twice. If headphones are that bad, I wonder if loud music at concerts or parties is better or worse?
I hate to admit it but I am the type of person that only enjoys music when it is blasting at its full volume! When listening to music through headphones, I am solely focusing on the song itself and tend to forget the long term impacts this intensive volume can cause. It is crazy to read that 1 in 5 teens suffers from hearing loss as that could impacts our lives and/ or our peers lives. Here is an interesting article that provides us with 7 proactive tips on how to avoid hearing loss.
http://ipod.about.com/od/generalmaintenance/a/avoiding-ipod-hearing-loss.htm
This has been an issue for quite some time since technology is always advancing, and new headphones, iPods, and iPhones are coming out. It is correct to say that correlation does not equal causation, but the results are very consistent with people who continue to listen to music loudly through headphones. I think this post will help to raise awareness to just how serious this issue is. Here is an article you might like to look at http://www.osteopathic.org/osteopathic-health/about-your-health/health-conditions-library/general-health/Pages/headphone-safety.aspx
I agree with your argument against the use of heaphones and how effective they are when dealing with hearing. I also agree that this will probably not change the use of headphones in society because of how valued they are. I also did a study showing the importance of technology on society and the results were very interesting/similar to your findings.
My mom always would yell at me and my brother for having our music too loud. Its very interesting that we listen to our headphones at such high decibels, but something like a motorcycle makes us cringe. According to osteopathic. org, 1 in every 5 teenagers suffer from hearing loss, and most of the time it comes from headphones. Also, experts say that if you can’t hear anything around you, then your music is too loud. Unfortunately as teenagers try to “block out the world” they are only harming themselves.
http://www.osteopathic.org/osteopathic-health/about-your-health/health-conditions-library/general-health/Pages/headphone-safety.aspx
As I’m sitting here reading your post, I’m listening to music on my headphones, so this post definitely hit close to home. My mom does that same thing, she’s always telling me to avoid using my headphones or earphones if I can help it. I agree with you statement about research on this topic, since it seems like scientists are already pretty certain of this claim (despite the fact that you can never be 100% correct in science). Here’s an interesting video from abc news that explains this phenomenon more in depth.
I am one of those people who blasts their music while doing everything, so I can totally believe this is true. when my phone pops up saying that listening at high volumes can be harmful, I have often wondered if a different type of headphone types of headphones are safer. In this article, it explains which type of headphones are safer and how long it is safe to use them for at one time!
i believe it, people blast music through their headphones, causing their hearing to go bad later in life. thanks for the insight!