By Laila Hicks
Wearing headphones is used for many different things. You can listen to music with them, watch a video, or answer calls, all while no one else can hear what it is you are listening to. Although this may sound helpful, many studies have shown that wearing headphones can permanently damage your hearing in just a quick amount of time.
Just by interviewing 10 students at BHS, and asking the question, “Do you wear headphones, and if you do, how often do you wear them?” The response, “Yes.” was said by all of the students, 5 out of the 10 said that they wear them more than they don’t. But do these students know the effects that wearing headphones can have on someone?
According to Mayo Clinic Health System, Katie Dease, Au.D states that “Global studies released in 2020 revealed that 24% of those ages 12–35 listened to sound at unsafe levels”.
By looking at different articles, statistics show just how much headphones volume and quality has improved in the last 5 years.
With these studies we can assume that they will continue to improve throughout the years and this means that the volume on them will be louder, making a higher risk of hearing loss. Audiophile On, has made a statement, “headphones will soon be able to learn user preferences over time, automatically adjusting settings to provide an optimal listening experience.
You might think It’s okay to listen to music for a short period of time at high volume and have no damage, but according to Harvard Health Publishing, “Headphone use at only slightly higher sound levels can cause damage in less than one hour, and it is easy to imagine listening to music with headphones for an hour or longer.”
Reading this, you could think you’re an exception to the issue because you’re usually only listening to music for about an hour; but let’s be honest, when you start listening to music while cleaning, doing homework, or anything that takes up much time, you most likely end up getting distracted, and forget that you were only supposed to listen for a certain amount of time, causing the damage to your ears. This happens more than you think. CSS-TRICKS polled their audience online and found 92% of them listen to music while they work at least part of the time.
While wearing headphones for a long period of time, and at a high volume can cause hearing loss, that doesn’t mean that you should stop wearing headphones completely. There are different types of headphones that are better than others.
Different articles, including Soundgate Hearing Clinic, have stated that wearing over ear headphones are the safest type to wear, and this is because they block out other sounds, which would make it to where you don’t need the volume to be so loud, they also reverberate the sounds as the music is not going straight to your ears, because of the padded protection around it.
You may be wondering, at what volume does it get dangerous to wear headphones? Dr. Williams, interviewed from Houston Methodist, states that she “usually recommends keeping device volume at or below 50%” This is because going above that percentage can increase the risk of hearing damage.
Although having your volume up while wearing headphones can cause hearing loss, wearing them too much can also cause it. This doesn’t have to be the case though, studies show that the average person should not be listening to music for longer than 90 minutes a day.
Setting yourself a timer to remind yourself to stop listening to music can help with this. But if you are doing something where music can help distract you, and would take longer, such as doing homework or cleaning, you can try taking 10-15 minute breaks every 30 to 45 minutes to help with giving your ears a break and overall protect your hearing.
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