Portable Music Players & Your Hearing

Turn the Music Up – But Not Past 85 Decibels

It’s likely that you frequently utilise your tablet or smartphone to watch music videos, TV series, or films. Indeed, numerous websites nowadays have videos that automatically start playing, even if you don’t wish them to.

Portable music devices, smartphones, and tablets have become standard, along with earbuds and headphones.

However, if you crank up the volume on your portable music device while wearing earbuds or headphones, you risk harming your hearing rapidly. Let’s explore the reasons behind this.

NIHL

This isn’t a fresh sports organisation — NIHL is an acronym for noise-induced hearing loss, and it ranks as the second most common reason for hearing loss globally. To grasp the concept of NIHL, it’s beneficial to comprehend the functioning of the ear.

Hearing basics

Listening is intricate. It involves more than merely your ears receiving sounds — your nerves and brain work together with your ear. Check it out:

• Your outer ear collects sound waves, which travel down your ear canal and cause your eardrum to vibrate.
  
• The vibrations travel through your eardrum and into the three tiniest bones in your body, located in the middle ear. These bones increase the vibrations and then transmit them to your inner ear.
  
• Within your inner ear, the movements transform into waves within a liquid-filled space. These waves agitate small, thin strip-like sensory cells, known as hair cells. These cells then transform the information from the waves into electrical signals.
  
• The nerve that deals with hearing transmits every nerve signal to the area of your brain that handles sound.
  
• Your mind performs numerous tasks without you even noticing: It locates the origin of the sound, concentrates on it, isolates the background noise, decides if it’s familiar to you, and distinguishes if it’s speech, music, etc.

Observe that numerous events occur throughout the procedure we refer to as a hearing! This intricate movement occurs continuously throughout the day, without much effort, as long as all the necessary steps are in place. However, any interruption to one of these steps can occur due to various reasons such as excessive earwax, injury to your eardrum, an infection in the ear, or harm to the small components within your middle or inner ear.

How noise causes hearing loss

When a loud sound occurs, the resulting sound waves hit your eardrum with considerable power. This power is then transferred from your eardrum, which is vibrating, to your middle ear, which amplifies it, and then to your inner ear.

This is where issues begin to arise.

Hair cells in your inner ear are delicate to intense movements. When a loud noise occurs, the vibrations that reach your inner ear create powerful waves, which can strain the hair cells. Over time, these hair cells may become worn out or damaged, leading to a decrease in their ability to transmit signals to the brain effectively. This can result in a loss of hearing.

How Headphones Hurt Your Hearing

Sound pressure, which refers to the power produced by a sound, is quantified in decibels (dB). A soft sound, such as the ticking of a watch, registers at 20 dB, whereas a food processor produces a sound at 95 dB.

Maintaining the health of your ears from the harm caused by loud sounds depends on the decibel level. It’s safe to be around if the sound remains below 85 dB. Beyond that threshold, you enter a zone where protection is necessary to avoid potential damage to your hearing.

For reference:

• A clothes dryer = 60 dB
  No need for hearing protection
  
• A gas lawn mower = 91 dB
  Exposure can damage hearing in 2 hours
  
• A tractor = 100 dB
  Exposure can damage hearing in 15 minutes
  
• A chain saw = 112 dB
  Exposure can damage hearing in less than 1 minute

Don’t fret — we’re not advising against mowing your lawn. However, if you do decide to do so, ensure you protect your ears by wearing some kind of hearing safeguard, like noise-cancelling earbuds or basic foam earplugs available at the drugstore.

Does this imply you’re required to use hearing protection while enjoying your tunes? No, but it’s within your control to set the volume at a safe level to safeguard your hearing: Certain portable music devices can produce 112 decibels, which is equivalent to the noise level of a chainsaw from a few feet away. Prolonged exposure to such loud sounds can lead to damage in under a minute!

Why Protecting Your Hearing Matters

Loss of hearing is unexpectedly tied to a person’s overall well-being. It has been associated with conditions like depression, heart disease, diabetes, mental decline, Alzheimer’s, and various other health issues.

However, this issue isn’t limited to the elderly: Research has shown that even a mild hearing loss in early childhood can lead to difficulties in language and learning.

Given that a study on the use of portable music players among children aged 9 to 11 discovered that nearly all of them, about 90%, engage in some form of audio streaming for educational or leisure purposes, portable music devices present a significant risk to hearing health at any age.

In fact, that same study revealed that 14% of the children showed signs of hearing loss. Moreover, children who listened to their portable music players just once or twice a week were twice as likely to experience hearing loss compared to those who did not use them.

What You Can Do

• Apply the 60/60 guideline. Avoid increasing the volume beyond 60 percent of its maximum level and switch off the device after an hour of listening to give your ears a rest.
  
• Go for over-ear headphones over in-ear earbuds. In-ear earbuds tend to pick up ambient sounds, which frequently results in increasing the music’s volume to better hear it. Over-ear headphones, however, minimise ambient noise, enabling you to keep the music’s volume at or below 60 percent. An even more advantageous choice is to purchase noise-cancelling headphones.
  
• Should you have to opt for earbuds, choose the in-ear variety. These earbuds are designed to fit snugly inside the ear canal, as opposed to merely resting on the outer ear. The protective casing around the speaker helps to muffle surrounding sounds and ensures that your sound remains contained within the ear canal.
  
• Utilise the volume restrict feature integrated into the compact music player. Numerous gadgets enable you to set a maximum volume level, or the device features an internal warning that notifies you of the danger of potential hearing harm by increasing the volume.
  
• Choose headphones for children that have volume controls. Although there are numerous kid-friendly headphone models available that prevent the volume from exceeding 85 dB, it’s advisable to do some research before purchasing any.

If you think you might have noise-induced hearing loss — or want to explore options for hearing protection in general — contact us today!