Amaya Toman We have already informed you countless times about the great popularity of AirPods headphones. Their shape also has a certain merit in this. Earbuds are especially popular with users who listen to their favorite music on the go, while walking or playing sports, and for whatever reason, classic over-the-ear headphones are out of the question. But there are also voices fighting against headphones and arguing their negative impact on human health.
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One of the arguments used by the opponents of this type of headphones is the poor ability to suppress ambient noise, which forces the user to constantly increase the volume. But this can really lead to gradual hearing damage. This is also confirmed by Sarah Mowry from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, who states that she is seeing an increasing number of young people in their twenties complaining of ringing in the ears: "I think it may be related to using headphones all day. It's a noise trauma," he states.
As such, headphones do not pose any risk – only certain principles need to be followed when using them. The main thing is not to raise the volume above a certain limit. According to a 2007 study, in-ear headphone owners tend to turn up the volume more often compared to over-ear headphone owners, mainly in an effort to block out the aforementioned ambient noise.
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Petr Škuta Audiologist Brian Fligor, who researched the impact of earbuds on healthy hearing, said that their owners typically set the volume 13 decibels higher than the surrounding noise. In the case of a noisy cafe, the volume of music from the headphones can rise to more than 80 decibels, a level that can be potentially harmful to human hearing. According to Fligor, when traveling on public transport, the volume in headphones can increase to more than 100 decibels, while human hearing should not be exposed to such a high level of noise for more than fifteen minutes a day.
In 2014, Fligor conducted a survey in which he asked passers-by in the middle of the city to take off their headphones and put them in the ears of a manikin, where the noise was measured. The average noise level was 94 decibels, with 58% of participants exceeding their weekly noise exposure limit. 92% of these people used earbuds.
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The World Health Organization reports that more than a billion young people are currently at risk of hearing loss due to the improper use of headphones.
Source: One Zero
According to the original, the doctor does not say that there are more and more young people with tinnitus going to ENT surgeries in general (which she cannot even know), but that many people in her 20s and 30s are now coming to her surgery (whereas before it was older patients ), and according to her, this may be related to the all-day use of headphones. This is not to deny that listening to music at full volume all day is not harmful. I just like it when the information is presented accurately.