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Headphone Danger: Is Anyone Listening?

Headphones have become a staple in everyone’s lives, but everyone seems to be ignoring the consequences. Hearing loss is on the rise among teenagers and young adults due to the frequency of use and volume of the headphones.

According to the Journal of American Medical Association hearing loss in teens is “30% higher than it was in the ’80s and ’90s”. About 1 in 5 teens have suffered some degree of hearing loss due to loud exposures of music through headphones. That would add up to at least 6.5 million teens that have hearing loss.

In their data it also stated that hearing loss is more common “among boys than girls” and “teens from poor families are more likely to have hearing loss.”

A common misconception is the bigger the headphones, the worse the damage, but the opposite is true. The smaller ear buds, the ones that commonly come with the iPhone/iPod are incredibly more dangerous. While headphones are placed over the ears, earphones are placed directly in the ear canal.

Decibels are the standard unit used to measure the level of sound. The maximum volume of headphones are 110 decibels. To illustrate how loud that is, a rock concert usually measure in at about 110-120 decibels. Placing an ear bud directly in your ear bud is like having a rock concert in your ear.

Joe Karri from Brooklyn said, “It’s scary to know the consequences of having them on so loud. Sometimes I fall to sleep with them on. It’s so easy to get into it and shut off the world.”

The consequences of hearing loss does not stop there. In an interview with ABC News, professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University Dr. Frank Lin stated, “With bad hearing, your brain has to allocate more of its resources to help with hearing at the expense of cognition.” This may lead to dementia over time.

But it all depends on the individual; those who are sensitive to hearing will have quicker and more extensive damage. The length of time also affects the amount of damage one can receive. There would be a drastic difference in damage when comparing a DJ to a person who only uses headphones while jogging no matter what the volume.

However, it does not only affect teens. The Archives of Internal Medicine stated 16% of American adults have suffered hearing loss due to high volume headphones. For those who are past the teenage years of their lives, it is still an issue. In addition to the regular hearing loss that comes with age, headphone use only speeds up the process.

An ear, nose and throat doctor in Queens Dr. Lisa Xing has seen the effects of this iPod generation. “I go to different schools to do monthly ear exams, and more than half of them fail at hearing the three highest frequencies,” Dr. Xing said. Whenever Dr. Xing sees children in her office with earphones she teaches them the dangers of maxing out the volume and makes sure they take them off while waiting. “It’s deafening the volume that they listen to music, a fire can happen and they won’t even know.”

The amount of noise in New York City does not help the situation. With taxis honking horns, planes flying overhead, trains rushing on the tracks and hordes of people on the streets. It gets extremely noisy causing people to raise up the volume on their headphones to “mask” it. But all it does is make it worse.

The process of “masking” causes the user to max out the volume to hear the music clearer and “cancel” out the noise from their surroundings. It is impossible to mask or cancel out noise, by maxing out the volume it increases the decibles and increases the damage done to the ear canal.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is known for his health stands and his next one is directly attacking hearing loss due to listening to music at high volumes. The campaign will raise awareness and warn teens and young adults about the danger of having high volumes on headphones.

“I wouldn’t mind the campaign. I hate those people who blast their headphones for no reason,” resident of the Upper East Side Karen Fitzgerald said. “There’s other people around, it’s my biggest pet peeve when I’m on the train. What makes people think that I want to listen to their music for hours on the train.”

To avoid or prevent any more hearing loss always listen to your music device below 70% volume, never max out the volume no matter how catchy the song is, and limit the amount of hours of listening through headphones.

Listening to headphones at more than 70% for more than an hour can cause permanent damage after five years.

“Karma will get you if you listen to your music too loud, when you’re older you won’t be able to hear a thing,” Dr. Xing warned those who refuse to lower the volume on their headphones.